Path Divergence
by rejuvinatedghost
Summary: Small choices can have big consequences in the fragile fabric of time, diverging from what was meant to be. Join Naruto Uzumaki on his journey through life as you explore just how powerful those choices can be. Slight Sasuke bash, eventual redeeming. Complete divergence from Canon all the way from the start. Pairing is a surprise, pretty sure a unique one at that.
1. Chapter 1

**NOOT NOOT BITCHES!**

 _ **And welcome to a brand new fanfiction I'm going to start. Enjoy!**_

… **.**

A child was running happily down a road, unfazed by a myriad glares subjected to him. He was searching for someone he could eat his favourite snack, **gyudon** , with. The child has blond unkempt hair and **purple** eyes. He knew just who to find. The person would be in the park at this hour. Going there, he found him.

"Orochimaru! Let's go eat some gyudon, pleeeease", he pouted.

"Hehehehe, sure thing Naru- **chan** , but let's hurry up, I have to talk with Sarutobi- **sensei** later".

"OK! Let's go!"

The pair walked down the street, going towards a place they both know. The people once glaring didn't dare to, not with a **sannin** around. They still wouldn't understand why would a sannin associate himself with the child.

"So, how's the academy Naru-chan"

"It was awesome, we learned **Kawarimi**. Me and Shika played **shoji** , he said I'm better at it than before!"

"That's nice, so what do you want to do today?", Orochimaru asked the boy.

"I'm not sure, maybe train".

"That's nice, you seem to love training", He added in his mind.

"Of course I do! It's awesome".

"Ok then, I is going to go see Sarutobi-sensei now, see ya later. "He smiled.

"Ok! See you later Orochi-jisan."

'You sure are a hyperactive kid, reminds me of Kushina, looks like you're the best of two worlds. 'Orochimaru thought.

….

"So, Orochimaru, any new developments?" asked the **Kami** no Shinobi, Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"Nothing new, I'm sure that the pervert knows more", said Orochimaru.

"Well then, how's Naruto-kun doing?" his face changing from serious to happy rather quickly.

"He will do a prank today" the snake summoner answered.

"How do you know?"asked the elderly Hokage.

"He said he'll train without proclaiming to me what he'll be training in, he will prank, judging by how little his resistances was to me leaving, it's a big one."

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!NARU **TOOOOO"** came the angry. voice of one cyclops nin.

"Hmm, I wonder what it is this time. "Hiruzen said.

"Must be something big if it did this to the usually calm and collected Kakashi" the sannin remarked.

" **Hokage** - **sama** " a new voice said.

They both looked, though they already sensed who it is.

"Yes, **Boar**?"

"It seems that Naruto has found a way to change every single **Icha Icha** book to **Yaoi** , in the **Anbu** headquarters, during lunchtime, in broad daylight, while wearing his pranking gear, the orange jumpsuit",came his gruff voice.

"I swear I still don't know how he does it, I doubt I can do that without being time he painted the monument in broad daylight as well without anyone in the whole village noticing."said the snake summoner.

"Anything else Boar?" Hiruzen asked.

"Uuuhhh, well there is a small problem about that."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow at his nervousness.

"We need help catching keeps evading us."

"You mean multiple anbu squads need help catching an 11 year old?" Hiruzen laughed.

"Hey! It's not funny, that kid is impossible to catch, it's unreal!" the anbu nearly yelled.

"Calm down, I'm sure Kakashi can do it for you"Orochimaru said.

"Uummm, actually, Kakashi- **senpai** was the one to send me here"

"Really? Fine I'll go", Orochimaru rolled his eyes as he got up.

…….

Naruto was regaining his breath in an alleyway, he has been running from anbu for a long time. 'Hah, guess I lost them again, those anbu suck!'

"Hello Naru-chan"

His eyes widened as he quickly jumped out of the alleyway, only to be blocked by a small mud wall that appeared out of nowhere. A hand grabbed his shoulder and touched a pressure point there, causing him to lose feeling in his leg as he fell down. He felt someone carry him away and looked at that person's face.

"Hey there Orochi-jisan. Funny meeting you in here."

"Seems you were causing some commotion Naru-chan. "

"Can you stop calling me Naru-chan, I'm not six!"

"Don't change the subject. You caused trouble for the ANBU, and that isn't nice. They're already worked to the bone, don't add to it", Orochimaru smiled. The kid really was innocent. Good, he needs a fun childhood. Not like some other Jinchurikis.

"Fine. Just that pranking is so much fun", Naruto said.

"Ok, so, how did you do the prank "He put Naruto down, who regained his movements at this point.

"I placed a **henge** on the books", Naruto told the sannin."

"Three things; one, henges can be easily discovered and cancelled, two, you do realise that you snuck around in the most guarded place in Konoha, since all the anbu practically live there, three, Kakashi keeps his book in his pocket and never lets it go out of there unless he is reading it. Hell he periodically checks the back pocket to make sure nothing is wrong. So would you mind telling me how an eleven year old academy student, one who wears bright orange, was able to do all that to high **jounin** level anbu? Hell I doubt even I can do all that I forgot, you also outran all the anbu sent after you and managed to lose them.", Orochimaru waited patiently for an answer from the blond.

"Well, my henges are solid for one reason or another, I snuck around the Anbus, and I took the book from **Kaka**.I just ran away from them.

Orochimaru's eye twitched, this was all he did, it seemed hard to believe. He decided not press the subject and ask later. He made a mental note to tell the Hokage about the solid henges of his

He rolled his eyes at the gleeful look on Naruto's face. The kid was a handful, but it was worth it since he always got a laugh out of him .Something eerily similar to his mother.

"Well then, let's go visit Sarutobi-sensei"

"Kay, Orochi-jisan, ladies first" Naruto joked.

"Really? that's the best joke you got?", Orochimaru said looking unimpressed.

"Come on, hurry up", Naruto yelled.

"Yes, Naru-chan"

"Stop calling me that!", Naruto shouted at the snake sannin.

….

Naruto was bored. Very bored. He was in the academy listening to a **chunin** named Iruka Umino babbling on about history, maybe. He didn't care since he already knows all this from Orochimaru. His friendly neighborhood sannin had made sure that Naruto was already prepared for the shinobi lifestyle. He was sitting next to a boy named Sai. Sai was a very awkward person, and he creeped Naruto out. Both the Hokage and Orochimaru told him to keep an eye on the kid .He also the third strongest with Naruto coming in at a close second. Shino was the first, he was the Aburame clan heir. He is a quite person who only talks if he needs to and always finds a way to end a conversation as fast as possible .Naruto and the ShikaCho duo have a game where they try to have the longest conversation with him as possible. Winner gets a cinnamon roll. The blond **Jinchuriki's** best friends where Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi. Both were heirs to their respected clans. Shikamaru was mostly just a lazy person who finds life too troublesome and suicide too troublesome as well. He loves cloud watching and the occasional chat with Choji. However, under the lazy exterior lies a genius like no other. With an IQ over is quite easily the smartest person in the village after his own father. Anyone who played shoji against the young genius would testify to that statement.

The 'big boned' Choji, in two words, is too kind. He is possibly the kindest person Naruto has ever met .However, anyone threatening his friends can quickly find out just what the chubby boy can do when aggravated. The young heir prefers to spend his time hanging out with Shika and Naruto.

On the other side of the classroom was the last **Uchiha**. Pretty much an egotistical jerk who expects the world to bow down to him because of his clan. Naruto chuckled remembering what Orochimaru said when he first met the Uchiha.

 _Flashback_

Orochimaru came to the academy to pick up Naruto. He has a new **jutsu** to teach him. The boy was always hungry for jutsu, and food. He always wanted someone to eat with. He got there and immediately regretted it as all the academy students flocked him to get an autograph from the strongest sannin. He did a quickKawarimi with one of the teachers and went to his favourite blond.

"Hi there, Orochimaru!", Naruto yelled as he ran at the snake summoner.

"Oi! Naruto- **baka!** Stop harassing the sannin you stup-WHAT!" Ino Yamanaka then stopped as said sannin gave Naruto a hug.

"Hey there Naruto-kun", Orochimaru chuckled. He didn't want to embarrass the boy after all.", How was your class today?"

"Really boring, it's all just some bland talk.", The blond answered.

"Yes, I remember how boring the academy is. It's all just useless crap about basic theories you literally never use.", Orochimaru stared at the academy, talking in a pseudo-nostalgic.

"Well, enough talk, let's go get some gyudon."

"Sure thing, we can train later .I have a new jutsu to show you today along with Jiraiya."

"Wait Naruto, you hang out with the sannin!?"

An **Inuzuka** , if the puppy on his head and the marks on his face were any hint.

"Uh, yeah, why"Naruto questioned.

"What the hell do you mean by _train_ , Sannin? You should be training me instead of this clanless baka!", exclaimed an apparently very angry boy. The girls usually around him stayed quiet though. They heard of the pale sannin's deeds, and didn't want to offend him.

"Who are you, may I ask?", Orochimaru knew who this is, but he felt like making fun of him as a good way to put his ego down a few notches.

"What do you mean _who am I?_ I am the last Uchiha, Sasuke Uchiha."

"An Uchiha? I thought **Itachi** finished them off"

Orochimaru asked no one in particular.", Guess he choked, too bad, I thought we got rid of you jutsu thieves.", Orochimaru continued, smirking in his mind., At this point, Sasuke was seething. Seeing this, Orochimaru decided to see how short was the Uchiha's temper."I guess life just isn't fair, but maybe you'd be so weak you'll die soon anyway".

Sasuke saw red as he rushed at the sanin, only to be thrown across the Academy front yard slamming into a wall. The fangirls of said Uchiha jumped back; frightened at the show of power and the **killer intent** that was radiating off of the snake summoner.

"Looks now, _academy student_ , I am not in the mood to deal with that massive ego of yours, don't you for one second think that you are my superior, and that I am to bow down and oblige to your every need and desire. I didn't go through two **shinobi world** **wars** just to be treated like this. You attack me, I hit you back", he huffed, knowing that his mood for the entire day was ruined by the blasted bastard.", Let's go now Naruto-kun.I'm hungry. "

"Um, ok, sure thing Orochi-jisan.", Naruto smiled, seemingly unfazed by the killer intent from the pissed of sannin.

At that answer, they both Inuzuka let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. At that, he felt a comment was needed to bring back everyone to reality.

"That...was...AWESOME! Did you see what happened **Akamaru**? Sasuke got his ass handed to him by a sannin! Hope he got knocked down a few pegs and learned his place! "

"Well, this is troublesome, but I guess the ending made the whole ordeal worth it."

"What the hell happened here? "Came the voice of the scarred chunin, Iruka Umino."

 _End flashback_

Next to the Uchiha were his two top fangirls, Ino **Yamanaka** , the heiress of the Yamanaka clan. The other was a pink haired girl, Sakura Haruno. Originally from a civilian family, she didn't have much going for her .Right behind them was another civilian born kid, Hataro maybe, but the person to his right was the one that caught Naruto's eyes. Shino **Aburame** was the heir of the Aburame clan. A rather quiet individual, but he was easily the best and most prepared one for the shinobi lifestyle in the class. His eye caught someone out of the corner of his eye. It was a white eyed girl, a **Hyuga.** The Hyuga heiress none-the-less. While she was nice enough, Naruto found her rather weird. He kept an eye at her with his peripheral vision. He heard the teacher, Iruka, talk about **Taijutsu** , looks like another taijutsu spar.

"...ptionally today in this taijutsu tournament. We will be beginning in five minutes. be sure you're prepared to face anyone in this classroom."

"Excuse me sensei", the year's top Kunoichi asked.

"Yes Sakura,you have a question?"

"Sensei, by anyone in this class, you mean anyone of our gender, right?", she said, slightly worried.'of course he does, that's what we've been doing since we started the academy' she thought,'this is my chance to show Sasuke-kun how strong I am'.

"No, since this is your last year here, you are expected to be able to fight equally against any person in your year, whomever it happens to be."

"But sensei…"she pleaded.

"No buts Sakura, it is not my fault you haven't been taking your practice seriously.", the teacher interrupted sternly.

"Now that that's out of the way, let us begin. "

The students all filed behind the teachers as they were to the academy different thoughts were going through the heads of the students.

'I hope'crunch'that I won't'crunch'fight any of'cruch'the strong guys'.

'So I might fight a girl...troublesome'

'I want to fight forehead, maybe then Sasuke-kun will notice me.'

'Logic would dictate that Sasuke would win as he is the top of this year, however, I feel that it will not be so simple.'

'I wonder how Naruto-kun will do, I will show him that I am not weak!'

'Me and Akamaru will blow right through those idiots!'

'I hope I won't have to fight a boy, they are all strong, well except for Shikamaru and Chouji, they are weak.'

'hn, those weaklings are nothing compared to the elites of this village.'

'I just want to kick Sasuke-teme's ass'

'Pineapples…'

….

"So, Jiraiya, any new **intel**?"

"As a matter of fact, I do, Orochimaru. It's something with **Suna** "

"Suna, what is it. They are rather close to us, I feel that this will affect us as well?"

"Yep, It's something big. It's all in the report"

"Just a sec Jiraiya...waitress, some tea if you may"

"Definitely Orochimaru-sama, it'll be here in a few minutes"

"Well then Jiraiya, I have some interesting things to tell you about Naruto-kun"

"Please continue, I haven't seen the gaki in quite a while"

"By 'while' you men a dozen years?"

"Shut up"

… **.**

 **A/N:Ok, so this was the first chapter of my first ever fanfiction, and I'm pretty excited for it!**

 **The chapter was horrible, I know, but I wrote this chapter about two years ago, so bear with me. I already have 30 or so chapters already written, so expect regular updates! The first few will be pretty bad, like this one, but it'll get better! I swear!**

 **Problem is that when I first started my style was bad and I had no experience writing, but my late chapters are actually good, if I may say so myself.**

 **This fanfic will have a similar start to canon, but around the time skip, things will start changing. Note: I will keep the OC characters at minimum, so don't expect any.**

 **Like the summary said, I'll start with a bit of character bashing (All from Naruto's perspective), and the characters will have have redemptions. I'll make sure to be fair to all characters.**

 **Meaning of bold terms**

 **Gyudon: Gyudon is a Japanese folk is comprised of a bowl of beef pieces in a bowl, sometimes with other vegetables or rice in the mix.**

 **Purple: In this fanfic, Naruto has his mother's purple eyes.**

 **Chan: Honorific used with someone males calling females or the elderly calling a small used by mothers.**

 **Sensei: Japanese for teacher**

 **Sannin: Sannin literally means three name goes to the three students of the third got the name when they survived a fight against a legendary nin named Hanzo of the Salamander.**

 **Kawarimi: A technique used to substitute yourself with a nearby object, thus it takes your place and you take its place.**

 **Shoji: A Japanese board game similar to chess.**

 **Sennin: Sage; someone who can use natural energy in combat.**

 **Kami: Japanese for god or holy and divine.**

 **Hokage: Literally meaning fire shadow, The Hokage is the leader of Konoha.**

 **Sama: Honorific used when addressing one of a higher social status.**

 **Boar: Code name for the is part of a group of very skilled nin who maintain secrecy thus wearing names are according to the animal on the mask they are given the most important jobs or the hardest and most dangerous along with missions that would usually count as immoral done unanimously so the village wouldn't lose face.**

 **Icha icha: Name of the erotica written by of the stress on the job,Said agents need a vice to let the stress read this.**

 **Yaoi: Erotica that features homosexual scenes.**

 **Anbu: Name of said organization of agents.**

 **Senpai: Honorific used when talking to someone not necessarily higher but personally respected as such.**

 **Henge: Technique used to change physical form as an illusion.**

 **Jounin: Third rank in ninja.**

 **Kaka: What Naruto calls Kakashi Hatake.**

 **Chunin: Second ninja rank.**

 **Jinchuriki: Name used for those humans who contain tailed beasts.**

 **Uchiha: A clan of bastards who steal the hard work of others and see everyone else as low class garbage. Hated by everyone.**

 **Jutsu: Technique.**

 **Baka: Japanese for idiot.**

 **Inuzuka: Ninja clan that uses dogs to help on see the dogs as equals.**

 **Itachi :Extremely skilled criminal shinobi famous for massacring the Uchiha clan.**

 **Killer intent: Technique that uses intimidation but takes it to a higher intense will to kill generated by the shinobi causes intense fear and possible unconsciousness in less experienced nin.**

 **Shinobi world war:A war including the majority of the major shinobi villages.**

 **Akamaru: Name of Kiba's dog.**

 **Yamanaka: Shinobi clan that uses mind traversing, reading, and telepathic abilities.**

 **Aburame :A clan that have insects living in them as use said insects in combat.**

 **Hyuga :A clan that has unique eyes, the has the ability to see chakra and the chakra system and has an all-round 360° vision.X-ray sight included.**

 **Taijutsu: Hand-to-hand combat.**

 **Suna: Another of the five great ninja villages, it is known for the desert it is located in.**

… **.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Buenos Dias, guys! Hello and welcome to this new chapter of Path we will be having the final piece before we start the fun!**

……… **.**

With all the students in the academy dojo, Iruka was ready to begin the tournament. While the students did not know, these matches were important in revealing the skill of each of the students and reveal any weakness to fine tune the recommendations for their jounin sensei. As the students stood along the wall, one arrogant student decided it was a good idea to stand right next to the teacher, rather than with the wanted to do something but decided the headache was not worth it.

"Ok students, we are now going to choose two random students to begin with", he took two papers from a bowl,"Hinata Hyuuga, and Sasuke Uchiha!".

"Hn, this is a waste of my time"

'I will prove my worth for Naruto-kun! I will show him I am not like the others!'

 _flashback_

Hinata was hiding behind a corner listening to her crush talking with his more she listens to him, the more intel she gets on more intel she gets in him, the easier it gets for her to talk with was her reasoning.

"So Naruto, find any chicks you dig", the brown haired boy asked his friend.

"Na, they are all either brainless fangirls, or not really interesting."The blond answered.

"Good point, maybe when we become genin we can meet other teams and try our luck",The lazy Nara decided.

'Hmm, so he hates weak 's ok, I'll show him I'm not like the rest! Then he will finally notice me!', The shy girl reckoned.

 _end flashback_

The two walked into the arena was basically a red colored ring painted on the floor of the is located exactly in the middle of the room allowing visual to everyone in the way for the students to learn from others, or when the situation takes, first row seats for a took a determined breath as she walked in, followed shortly by Sasuke, appearing extremely apathetic as of this was a waste of 'll show him what a waste of time this is. She had been training rigorously since the time she found out her secret crush hates weak will make him regret ever looking down on her.

"Are the contestants ready?"the scarred chunin asked.A nod by the Hyuuga heiress and a 'hn' by an arrogant egotistical emo duck head signified their consent with beginning.

"Hajime!",the scarred chunin jumped back, getting out of the way from the two clan heirs.

"Hn, so you really think that a weakling like you, can even dream about touching me; the Uchiha prodigy?", the unsuspecting jerk asked rhetorically, earning him shouts of "Sasuke-kun" form his fangirls and one fanboy.

"Prodigy? Well it's hard not to be the Uchiha prodigy considering the competition."Hinata smirked.

"That's it. I'm going to kick her ass", Sasuke glared at the Byakugan user.

"I hope Sasuke takes it easy on her, she's just a girl", Sakura told her best friend.

"Yeah, Hinata has sure gotten herself into more than she can ever hope to handle.", the Yamanaka heiress answered.

The two youths stood inside the circle, before Hinata charged at Sasuke, Byakugan flaring. Her hands were in the trademark Hyuga style, ready to attack Sasuke's chakra.

Sasuke jumped to the side, surprised by her speed, but still apathetic. Hinata spun around, a hand attacking his chest, but Sasuke crouched, spinning around with a low kick and hitting her ankles.

Hinata fell down, with Sasuke jumping back and standing in the Uchiha Taijutsu stance.

The girl gritted her teeth, getting up and standing in a legitimate Hyuga stance, staring Sasuke down.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and charged at her, dodging a strike and kicking her midside before slamming her down.

"Alright, that's enough. Winner, Sasuke", Iruka intervined.

"Guess he wasn't just hyped needlessly. Can't say I'm surprised.", Konoha's only Jinchuriki commented.

'Only Shino can beat Naruto and Sasuke, and that's only if Shino can use his bugs...troublesome', thought a student. 'Those three might be going places'

"Iruka-sensei, she cheated!", the kunoichi of the year objected.

"Eh, nani? How did she cheat? "the confused teacher inquired.

"Sensei, was she allowed to use her Byakugan?", Sakura asked.

"Yes. You can use anything as long as it isn't Ninjutsu or Genjutsu", they're too young to know about the other arts, so that should be good wnough.

"But that would give her an unfair disadvantage"

"No buts, Sakura. I make the rules", Iruka sighed. Those kids are all so stubborn.

A snicker was heard in the dojo. Iruka looked at the Inuzuka heir with a raised eyebrow.

"Really Kiba? Very mature of you. ", He sighted again. This class was way more trouble than he first thought.'Why couldn't it be like last year's class, they were fine aside from the rookie of the year Neji .And that loser Lee. Wonder how they're doing, heard they got Gai.'

"Well, I think that's stupid. This is a Taijutsu tournament, not an eye test", Naruto said.

"Enough chitter-chatter, Haruko Kosuke vs Kiba Inuzuka!", he yelled loudly to get his students to shut up.

It seemingly did the trick."Yahoo! You hear that Akamaru! It's our turn!" said the over excited dog tamer as he jumped onto the , a civilian born boy followed got in a strange stance, crouching on all fours.

"Hajime!"

Kiba jumped in the air, yelling " **Tsuga**!" spinning like a drill and hitting his slower opponent head in pain, Haruka fell down, failing to get up.

"Well that was quick, winner:Kiba Inuzuka! Next match: Sakura Haruno vs Choji Akimichi!"

"Sensei! I'm at an disadvantage! It's unfair!"She yelled out.

"Sakura" the scarred chunin began, "This is your fourth and last year. With all the training you surely have done you can all fight equally, you saw Hinata's match! ", Well, she kinda fought well-ish.

"OK, sensei…" she murmured defeatedly.

As both genin went to the ring, Iruka raised both arms up in the air.", Hajime!" he yelled.

Chouji got in his family taijutsu kata, prepared to block any attacks and deliver a counter. Going defensive as not to hurt her, he watched as she nervously charged at him, fist cocked, ready to attack. He knew that his chances as a genin were threatened by a loss and he already failed the written test. As she struck at him, he blocked. Deciding to get her out of the ring, he side-stepped causing her to lose footing. She tripped and lost guard, giving him an opening to get around her and give a massive shove.

"Shousha Chouji, that was nice", 'he was too soft but he realised her weaknesses and beat her cleanly, good one Chouji'.

"So now that that's done, let's move on. Next match: Ino Yamanaka vs Shikamaru Nara!."

"Mendokuse", Shikamaru sighed, "I don't want to fight a girl, but my mom will kill me if I fail"

"Ha! I got an easy fight! ", the Yamanaka shouted confidently.

As the two participants took their places, Iruka announced the beginning; "Hajime!"

The Nara stepped back and started doing what he does best, thinking. His opponent charged at him, mistaking his step back as a sign of fear. He decided to cheat, though only slightly,as his Taijutsu skills were horrible. As she came closer to him, a small, unnoticeable shadow crawled up towards her, freezing her slightly. The shadow almost instantly disappeared, and he did a quick spin kick. With a shove at her falling body, she was pushed outside the ring, marking him the winner.

As everyone gave a quick applause, Iruka declared him a winner. Being a chunin, he easily saw the shadow the Nara used, but decided to turn a blind eye at it. They were ninja after all. Cheating is in the job description."Shousha Shikamaru!"

"Mendokuse, now everyone's gonna be on my case for hurting a girl"

"Hey! You lazy bastard! What the hell did you do!", the blonde shouted at the Nara.

"I won"

"You know that's not what I mean! You did something that made me freeze up!", she glared at him.

"So you're blaming me for your Tourette Syndrome? Mendokuse..."

The lazy boy retreated before the Yamanaka came any closer to exploding. Iruka stood in-between them and stopped the furious blonde from mutilating her classmate. 'Now that that's all done, let's continue'

"Now that this is all done, we can begin the next match. Shino Aburame vs Naruto Uzumaki! Please come to the ring!"

The two walked down towards the circular ring, along with all eyes down on them. This was the last fight that had main characters in it. It was bound to be interesting. Shikamaru eyed both of them carefully. He, unlike the majority of this class, recognized them as the best in this class. He wanted to get a clear view of their strengths. Perhaps he can get an idea on the kind training they do.

Iruka raised his hands in the air. "Hajime!"

Both stood still, daring the other to make the first move. After what seemed to be ages, but was really just minutes, Naruto lost patience and charged at his adversary. Shino raised his arms and did a quick chop at the blond in a defensive charge, only to be blocked by said blond's attacks.

'His style seems to consist of mainly using offensive only, and blocking with attacks. His superior stamina and endurance seem to help him in that .Any attack I would do, he would immediately counter it with an attack of his, considering his high strength and endurance, I would fall before he would. I must do something about it'.

As the blond came at him again with another attack combo, Shino spun around, quickly getting behind Naruto and throwing a punch at his neck. He was greatly surprised by his classmate's next manoeuvre, as he jumped back, getting over the Aburame and kicking him in the shoulder. 'He's much faster than I assumed.'

As they faced each other again, they both charged, trading blow for blow, hit for hit. As Shino threw a quick punch, Naruto retorted with another punch, hitting his fist at a high speed, a loud crack filling the dojo. Shino jumped back to try and recover or think up another plan, but was shut down as Naruto charged at him again. 'He has superior speed, strength, and I am one hand I must..'

"Sensei, I forfeit."

"Oh...wait say what?" 'that was out of nowhere, just when things were getting exciting'

"He has superior skills and much higher physical prowess. I am an arm down. Obviously I cannot win. Therefore I forfeit", Shino answered.

"Yay, I guess." Naruto yelled half-heartedly.'So my taijutsu is better, and I think we are close ninjutsu-wise. Guess I only have to be more skilled to beat him. Those damn bugs make fighting him impossible. I should ask Orochimaru for some fire techniques. '

"Now that the main characters and an OC never to be used again have finished their matches, we can skip all the other unnamed students and leave the dojo."

"But what about our grades? Shou-"

"SHUT UP YOU!"

… **.**

"So, what do you think?"

"hmmm, this seems a bit troubling. Are you sure that they spread it?"

"Yep, my agent is never wrong!"

"What's your opinion?"

"I believe that this only strengthen my original theory, they may be weak but they sure are tactical enough to be a threat."

"Did you find them yet? "

"They really are hard to pinpoint."

"Oh, any good news?"

"Violence is going to be finally published soon."

"Awesome!"

"I gonna leave you perverts alone, I promised the kid I'd get him some Gyudon today."

.

.

.

"So, will I get an early version? "

"Of course!"

"Thanks a lot Senpai!, I'm going now!"

"Me too, lots of research to be done!"

.

.

.

As he walked down the road, he contemplated on the latest news. Taking out his book, he walked on the wall to get more space to giggle. Giving a quick salute to a hidden Anbu spying on a suspicious person, he jumped down and looked at his destination. Icha Icha Museum. Ahhh, the wonders of a Sannin's dedication.

Just as he was entering the large pink building, he noticed a lazily put down his book and looked at said Anbu.

"Soooo, it's a mission, right?", seeing the nod, he rolled his eyes. 'Take my eye, he said, you'll use it well, he said. This thing is the reason why I'm on missions 24/7', He huffed,"How long will it take?"

"A week or so"

'Damn, good thing Jiraiya is going to send a pre-order, I'll never make it to the release in time'.He did a quick shunshin to the tower.

… **.**

"Yum! That was amazing, Orochi, thanks for the meal", a blond boy exclaimed.

"Glad to see you're happy" ,'though I can't say the same about my wallet, how much can he eat!'

"Sooooooooooooo….let's train!", Naruto yelled with glee.

"Hate to break it to you, but you don't train mere minutes after eating", he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, ok I see"

They walked down the street, dodging the occasional water balloon thrown by a scarfed child.

"That kid is starting to piss me off. What did you do to provoke him again?", Orochimaru grumbled.

"Hey I didn't do anything! He is just obsessed with proving he's the superior pranker! Yeah right, like that'll happen", the blond smirked confidently.

"Ok, we'll just shunshin away. Get over here."

"You're going to teach it to me! Yay!", the blond did a quick victory dance.

"No, I'll just do it for both of us. We will go to the training grounds", the snake sannin answered.

"Awww, but I wanna learn it! Wait, we're going to train? Woohoo, I win!", the blond excitedly yelled, earning him a face-fall from the sannin.

 _Timeskip_

"What are we going to learn Orochi?", the hyperactive child, always ready for learning techniques, gave his best kawaii did not work.

"Today I'm going to teach you a high level technique"

The blond was beaming.

"It's a technique that many jounins can't do, but you can, I'm confident."

The blond got closer, eyes wide open.

"It, is the **kage bunshin** technique!"Orochimaru smiled.

Naruto face fell. "Oi! O already know **bunshin** , why the hell should I learn this?"Naruto shot at him.

"Naruto, the bunshin technique is just an illusion that, unless you have ADD or something, is quite , not quite, bunshin not only are real and solid, but can actually do jutsus, fight, and even use can even be used in training and learning jutsus!", Orochimaru told the boy in his teacher voice.

"Wait, so I can use them for chakra control! Cool!", the boy beamed.

"No, chakra control is the ability to use your body's chakra with proficiency. The clone method would allow you to know how to do it, but your body cannot. Though they can help get a deeper understanding of how chakra control exercises work." the sannin shot him down.

"Ohh, why is life so against me!", he complained.

"Now, now, Naruto, bad chakra control isn't so bad, it just makes you waste chakra and-"

"Have difficulty with certain jutsus, I know, Iruka-sensei literally beat it into my head.", he interrupted.

"Ok, so the hand signs are easy, it's just one, this", he showed the child the single hand sign.

"Only one, COOL! That's so easy!"

"Now, do the same thing you do with clones, but put as much chakra as possible, okay", he guided him.

POOF!

Around thirty Naruto's stood around them.

"Well, that was quick. Faster than Anko-chan. Though he does have the reserves for how they'd get along.", the sannin pondered loudly.

"Who's this Anko?"

"You'll meet Anko soon, don't worry. " 'probably in the chunin exams'. He made an afterthought.

"OK! Hope he's cool!"

Sweat drop." is full name is Anko Mitarashi."

"Really? I sure hope she like dango,with a **name** like that.", Naruto deadpanned.

"Trust me, she does."

… **.**

 _A dozen days later…_

Wild chatter was heard all over the classroom as the academy students were excited for the day's events. The team placements were due, and the children who passed were excited as all were listing their most hated possibilities, some blabbering on and on about who they want to be on.

Shino sat quietly behind the class fangirls, hidden from view as the entirety of the class would not look at her or her friend, albeit for different reasons than what they believe. They were practically a visual block, giving him an air of solitude, and he wouldn't have it any other way. The noise was the obvious draw back, but his **Kikaichu** can block his ears.

'It would be preferable if I had a sensei who has strength and experience to give his students. Hmmm...I wonder who mine would be.'

Naruto Uzumaki sat in his seat, next to the Hyuga girl who apparently has a crush on would rather not pursue it, as he barely remembered her name, let alone anything else. Maybe if they got the same team.

'Orochimaru said I got a good sensei, but he had that look. Something isn't right. I should be prepared. Well, I certainly hope duck-but isn't with me, but considering I'm a jinchuuriki, we probably are. Damn it.'He looked around, seeing Shikamaru in his usual form.

Shikamaru was it his seat, head down. Only one thing going on in his head.

ZZZZ…..ZZZZZ….ZZZZ…..

"Alright kids! Let's get down to business! Haruko Moniki, Pidara Fugaku, Ryu Shi, You're Team One! Your sensei will be Raido Namiashi! Team two is still in rotation, Team Three will be…

Shikamaru looked like he was sleeping, but in actuality he was thinking. Many people graduated this year. Well, many graduate every year. Hmmm...His dad did say Konoha only has a medium amount of genin teams, that's why D ranks are always overflowing. That means that all the teams that graduate don't necessarily pass, a second, harder test, maybe. Mendokuse'.He thought.

"Naruto Uzumaki-"

Said genin immediately perked up

"Sakura Haruno-"

"FUCK!"

"And Sasuke Uchiha-"

"DOUBLE FUCK!"

"Hmm, what's wrong Naruto, afraid from me?"

"Iruka-sensei, please! I beseech you! Put me with someone else! Anyone!", Naruto begged.

"Naruto, quiet down, and mind your language. Those teams were made by the Hokage himself.", Iruka informed.

"That's it! The old man is in for a month of torture!"

"Naruto! Don't threaten Hokage-sama!", the teacher yelled at him.

"I'll threaten whoever the hell I want to threaten!", he shot back.

"OI! Shut the hell up!" Iruka's eyebrow twitched.

"FINE!", Naruto pouted.

"As we were going, Team eight is Kiba Inuzuka,Hinata Hyuga, and Shino , your jounin sensei will be Shiranui Genma. Team nine is sti-"

"Oi! Iruka-sensei, who is our sensei? Hey, that rhymes! ", Naruto intervened.

"Damn it, you made me forget you troublemaker! It's Kakashi Hatakke. So as I was saying before a rude interruption", he eyed the blond, "Team nine is still in rotation. Team ten is Ino Yamanaka, Choji Akimichi, and Shikamaru Nara, Your Jounin sensei is Asuma Sarutobi"

"Troublesome…"

"Wait, what about us?", a kid asked.

"You're not main characters, no one cares about you."

"Oh…"

… **.**

 **Jyuuken:Gentle fist style used by Hyuga's, this style consists of gentle taps on the opponent, using the Byakugan dojutsu to accurately attack and release chakra directly into the Tenketsu points in the body, causing intense pain and chakra opponent can not manipulate chakra in the area of impact.**

 **Name like that: Anko is a type of dango. Mitarashi is a type of dango. Her name is sort of a double pun on dango.**

 **Teme: bastard**

 **Tsuga:Bastardized version of the Getsuga attack of the Inuzuka, without using a dog user spins quickly, imitating a drill, highly damaging if chakra is used to enhance it.**


	3. Chapter 3

**To the window! To the wall!**

 **Let's all enjoy this little chapter.**

… **.**

The members of team seven were, to put it simply, pissed. They have been waiting for three hours. THREE FULL HOURS! And this supposedly elite jounin still hasn't arrived. Is this how it's going to be every day? They sure hoped not.

"Ahhhh! Where in the seven levels of hell is he! I sweat he better be on some super-secret mission, or I'll make him pay. Big time. Is this what the second exam is?", 'wait, did I say it out loud? Shit', Naruto cursed in his head.

"Wait what?! What second exam, is there something I missed!", Sakura half-asked, half-yelled at him.

"Ugh, it's a thing Orochi told me of. He sorta gave me a riddle. I just figured out the rest.", Naruto answered her.

"Who is this Orochi person? ", asked the Uchiha.

"I mean Orochimaru, ya know, mightiest sannin? He is rather popular in some places", Naruto informed the asshole.

"Still can't see why he's so interested in you. I can't for the life of me find anything special in you. Waste of his time", Sasuke muttered.

"Cause we all know how the straggler is so special", Naruto mocked.

"Shut up"

"Bastard"

"Moron"

"Brat"

"Oi! Knock it off, Naruto", the pinkette yelled.

"Well, he doesn't have to be so salty. Just accept that I'm better than him in every measurable way, except in being an arrogant, douchy, jerk who hates everything else .Ya know, like the average Uchiha is nowadays."

"Shut up, idiot", Sasuke rolled his eyes. If playground insults are the best he has, then it's a waste of time.

Wait a second, average Uchiha nowadays?

Gah, now he got that jab. Good one, but it pissed him off.

.

.

.

"Sooo, what the hell is this second exam?", Sakura questioned.

"It's an exam that probably disqualifies teams to make sure only the best remain. If I were to guess, I'd say it's some sort of indirect test. Difficult, most likely", Naruto gave her an answer.

"Hn, it will be nothing for me"

"Oh Sasuke-kun, you're so amazing."

"Can you please shut up?"

"Hello"

"Ahhhh!", all three genin jumped away, seeing as a person somehow joined their little head-butting without them even noticing it.

A masked man with gravity-defying hair stood in the middle. His Hitai-ate covering his left eye, the right one wrinkled in what could be interpreted as a smile. His green Jounin vest had not a spot on it..

"Ummm...hello?", he said again. "You seem very jumpy".

"Ahhhh! Who the fuck are you!?How did you get here!?", Naruto yelled at the intruding jounin.

"I walked here, I am you jounin sensei", he answered in opposite order. "Meet me on the roof in five minutes", he shun-shined away.

"What...the fu-"

"Watch your profanity Naruto!", Sakura yelled at him as she hit his head.

"Hey! Don't hit me! And I'll say whatever the hell I want to say! It's called freedom of speech!"

"Hn, just shut up and leave", Sasuke stated.

"Fine, let's leave.", Naruto grumbled as he led the way.

… **.**

On the roof, the genin looked at their sensei, obviously indulged in a pink-colored book. With all of them on the roof now, he looked up and greeted them.

"Hello, my cute little genin. Let's start the introductions, shall we? Tell me about yourself.", the cyclopean jounin requested.

"Umm...how sensei?", Sakura asked.

"You know, likes, dislikes, dreams, hobbies. That kind of stuff", Kakashi said.

"You start", Sasuke told him.

"Ok, let me show you. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have more likes than dislikes. My dreams...I have a lot of hobbies."

They deadpanned. 'All he told us was his name.'

"You start blondie."

"Ok...My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I like gyudon, my friends, and training...I guess I dislike Sasuke, liars, and general pricks I guess.

"Hn, take that back!", Sasuke shouted at the blond.

"I don't think so", he retorted. "My dream is to become the Hokage.", Naruto grinned at that.

"Let's go on now, you go next, duck-butt hair", Kakashi intervened before the argument escalated.

"Hn, my name is Sasuke Uchiha. I don't like many things and I hate many things .My dream is not really a dream, for I will make it a reality. I will kill a certain someone."

"Mental much?", Naruto commented.

"Oi! Naruto!", Sakura yelled at him..

"You're next, pinkie", Kakashi smiled at her.

"Ok. My name is Sakura Haruno. I like-", she looked at Sasuke and blushed. "I hate Ino-pig! My dream is-", she looked at Sasuke again and blushed.

"Ughh, fangirl", Naruto moaned.

"What do you mean by that!", she glared at the blond boy.

"You're not a shinobi, you're a fangirl. "

"Um...students, I have an announcement to make", Kakashi distracted them. "Tomorrow we will have a survival exercise. Don't have breakfast. Wouldn't want you puking all over me", he smiled.

"Cool, sure hope there isn't any second test or anything. Wouldn't that be ridiculous?", he laughed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

The others got his intention, and looked at the jounin, confident looks in their eyes. The jounin just looked lazily at Naruto, silently reviewing him and sizing up his strength. 'This kid is pretty surprising, didn't expect him to understand what Orochimaru meant with that quick speech. Smarter than I expected. If only he was on a good team, rather than this circus bunch.'

Well, with the last Uchiha, it's actually a pretty good team. Problem is the Kunoichi sucks. I wish I had Guy's Kunoichi.

"Goodbye!", he smiled at them, before disappearing, gently floating leaves left in his place.

"Oh, man, I've got to learn how to do that!", Naruto exclaimed.

… **.**

 _Next day_

"Is he being serious? He can't always be this late."

"Naruto, shut up, he's a jounin, he probably has a good reason for being late", Sakura scolded him.

"It's THREE FUCKING HOURS! No one is this late all the time! "

Just as the argument was about to get physical, Kakashi arrived in a shunshin, his eye wrinkled up in what appears to be a smile.

"Sorry for being late, a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way around."

The three all face-fell, wondering how he ever thought that would be a useful excuse.

"Anyhow, let's get started. This exercise will decide whether you get kicked to the academy or pass bland become full-fledged genin!"

"WHAT! WE MIGHT FAIL!",the genin shouted loudly, terrified from the possibility of another year as academy students.

Kakashi placed an alarm clock on a stump, setting it to half past noon. He then took out two bells from his pocket and showed them to the genin.

"You have until midday to get those bells from me. If you don't have any bells by the time the clock rings, you fail. You start when I tell you to start."

"Ummm, sensei, there are only two bells, maybe you lost one?", Sakura dreaded what he might say next. And for good reason too.

"That's because only two of you will pass. The other will fail! Any questions?", he smiled, sort of. His mask makes it hard to figure out his face.

The three genin stood there, petrified; one of them will fail, no way around it.

'I hope he changes his mind, I don't think I can do much, damn it I should have trained more! I don't think I can beat anyone here.', Sakura had a worried look on her face, hiding the fear and turmoil inside.

"This is fishy, Orochimaru had a standard genin team yet they were three members. He also told me how he knew Jiraiya and Tsunade since the academy. Things seem to not really fall in place, is he making this up? I need some thinking about this.', Naruto stared off into the distance, a thinking look etched onto his face.

'Hn, I'll ace this, then I will kill him…', Sasuke glared at nothing. Weird guy.

Kakashi walked back a dozen or so steps. "We will start when I say so. Remember to come at me with the intent to kill. Use any and all weapons you have."

"But sensei, we could hurt you!", Sakura told the jounin, worried for his safety.

"Don't worry, you won't come close to even touching me. Just worry about yourselves", he took out his book, about to start reading it.

.

.

.

"Go"

The three of them jumped away, hiding in the greenery of the forest surrounding the training grounds. The watched the jounin, waiting for him to divert his attention from the book. He didn't.

'Hmm, ok this is obviously some sort of trick mission. It's obvious that a genin wouldn't stand a chance against a decorated jounin such as him. We need to work together to distract him. Maybe then we can figure out what he really wants us to do', Naruto thought, not realizing how close to the true answer he really is.

He was forced out of his brainstorming when multiple shurikens were launched at the jounin, who simply ducked under the volley.

A blur (kinda) sped through the foliage, quickly getting at Kakashi from behind. Sasuke raised his kunai up in the air, getting ready to stab, only to freeze in shock as a wooden plank appeared where the man once was. Sasuke stood his ground, looking for where the jounin might attack from.

'He's going to be attacked by the jounin and decided to stand his ground to fight him of. Idiot. A genin won't stand a chance when he's being attacked by a jounin.'

Sasuke looked around, trying to find the jounin. 'Left, Right, Front, Back, where is he coming from!?', he was cut from his thoughts as hands broke through the ground, grabbing his ankles and pulling down, burying him 'till the head.

" **Head-hunter Jutsu**. You should have retreated when I used the Kawarimi, Sasuke-chan.", Kakashi smiled at the helpless boy.

"Hn! Let me go and give me the bells you stupid jounin! The council will have your head for touching me!"

"Let's see the rest of your team, maybe they will do better than this."

"Hn"

… **.**

Sakura crouched next to a bush, heavily panting. She didn't have much of a stamina and half an hour of running was quite taxing on her. She needed to find a way to ambush him. Maybe playing defensively will help, since he will want to test them all. Problem is, he's a jounin, an elite, nothing a genin like would produce can actually affect him, he can probably see it from a mile away, even with his handicapped eye.

She sighed as she hid in a bush, desperately trying to find an advantage she can use to get an edge on him. "Psst, you should pay more attention to your surroundings, you know? "

"Eeeep!", Sakura jumped back, away from the voice she just heard. Turning around, she noticed it was her new sensei, who sneaked up on her. Thinking quickly, she took out a kunai from her equipment pouch and threw it at the intruder. It missed.

"Unless you have a **Rube Goldberg** machine set up, I think that's a miss.", Kakashi told the pink haired genin.

Sakura took out a smoke bomb and threw it under her feet, planning on using the clone jutsu to trick him and try to steal a bell. Unfortunately, she did not know that smoke bombs should be thrown in front of her, as the smoke would disarray her and literally freeze her senses, not mentioning the smoke would irritate her inexperienced lungs.

Kakashi watched as his new student coughed from the smoke, realising that she made the same mistake many newbies made in the past. Well, as long as she learns from mistakes.

He decided to be quick and use a small genjutsu illusion on her to knock her out. He is yet to thanks Kurenai for the impressive array of genjutsu she taught him, they were very useful in more ways than one.

He used the shunshin to go to where he last saw Naruto. Hopefully the kid can entertain found a good empty place and stood in it. Whipping out his book, he started reading the newest development in plot.

Naruto watched him, hidden in the tree by his **unique henge** to turn into a bird. He decided to try a plan he brainstormed the other day, and had a group of clones transform into a set of kunai and shuriken to get close to him. Another clone then picked all 8 of them up and threw them in a barrage form. They all missed.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at this action, from the boy's grades he would expect at least two or three to was forced to put his book down when all of the kunai exploded into a group of clones.

'What! How! Did he use an advanced genjutsu or somehow seal the clones in the kunai, or maybe his clones were somehow able to use Kawarimi to substitute with that is an extremely advanced skill!'

After slaughtering the clones, he took note of his surroundings, noting the disappearance of the kunai. 'So it's a genjutsu or a substitution. ', he ensured, only for his eyes to widen as the shurikens also turned into another wave of clones. With his superior speed, he killed them all. 'He can't be skilled enough for a double-part genjutsu, so it has to be Kawarimi.' the jounin thought.

He stared at the tree the attacks came from, noting what could be there.

'4 birds, a couple squirrels. He can't be there, to climb the tree, you need to go through that small spider web, and the grass is untouched so he couldn't have jumped or it will be slightly upturned. '

A bird flew away, headed to another tree. 'Damn it, close range is impossible. I'll go with plan B and have Sasuke use his ranged abilities, maybe then we can get the bells.

After flying around, he found the Uchiha buried in the ground, with only his head being left above the grass. After laughing, or chirping, as he was still a bird, he changed back into his regular form. He made a few clones to go slow down Kakashi and jumped down, surprising Sasuke greatly.

"Where did you come from? How did you evade Kakashi!", he was obviously still pissed about his defeat.

"I had a few clones slow him down."

"Baka, clones won't slow down a jounin.", Sasuke told the blonde.

"Solid clones", Naruto said simply.

"Oh, did Orochimaru teach them to you?", he was legitimately interested.

"Yeah, but I can't teach it to you, it takes too much chakra for you.", Naruto answered.

"Then how the hell can you use them?", he felt some trickery going on.

"I have a huge amount of chakra, ever noticed how shitty my chakra control is?", Naruto said.

"Oh, ok", Sasuke felt than there was more Naruto isn't telling him about, but he decoded he can ask later.

"Sasuke, I need your long range abilities to help us get the bells, I think it's not really about the bells, but for now, let's just do our best to get use your fire ball to distract and I'll get him with a disguise.", Naruto explained his half-baked plan to Sasuke. "Throw me, K?"

Sasuke was about to say that he can't throw Naruto's weight and that this is a shitty plan, but was quickly shut up when Naruto transformed into a physical shuriken.

"What the hell? How did you transform physically? ", upon not hearing an answer he decided to just do his part.

It didn't take long for him to find Kakashi, and he quickly started the barrage.

Kakashi just easily dodged the throws, but was quite surprised when a shuriken transformed into a familiar blond genin who proceeded to stretch his arm to grab the bell. Kakashi quickly kicked him away and escaped with a Kawarimi.

The sound of an alarm clock ringing signified the end of the exercise and Kakashi smirked. 'Now let's see how they deal with the second part of the exam.'

He decided to go to the centre area after reading a few chapters to tell them the good news.

… **.**

The genin were at the three stumps in the middle of the training ground.

"Aww man, I can't believe we failed. I even worked with Sasuke, something I promised myself I'd never do!"

Sasuke simply grunted at this. He was wondering what other tricks Naruto had and didn't tell them.

Sakura looked at the ground, wondering how could've she helped the team.

"Hello"

"Aaaahh! ",the genin jumped back for the second time this day.

"Calm down would you? And here I was thinking about giving you a second chance."

"Wait what! Second chance?", Sasuke yelled/asked the jounin.

"Why yes, you two's teamwork impressed me, though Sakura will be tied to the stump."

"Hey! Why am I the one to be tied?", she protested.

"Because I said so. You two can eat your lunches." He through them two bentos. But don't give her any."

He then left them to their own devices.

.

.

.

"Here", Naruto offered Sakura some of his food.

"But why? Sensei said you can't give me food."

"I don't give a rat's ass about what he said. Both Sasuke and I together couldn't get the bells. We'll need the whole team, and if you're hungry, you'll be stunted.", Naruto reasoned.

"He has a point", Sasuke grunted. He offered some of his own food. Sakura was about to thank the two when a shadow loomed over them.

"YOU!", Kakashi yelled at them enraged. "YOU DISOBEYED ME! YOU pass. Now we can start our actual training tomorrow. Take today off.", He smiled.

"Wait what? What? Wait what?", They stuttered, not fully understanding what the hell just happened.

"Even with my orders, you stuck together like a team, Naruto and Sasuke even showed teamwork. The purpose of this test wasn't the bells. They were supposed to divide you.", He started walking. They followed after Naruto freed Sakura from the stump.

"The goal of this was to see if you would put your differences aside and work together. Teamwork, that's how Konoha works."

He stood at what seemed to be a polished rock, with names carved on it.

"This monument has the names of those who were KIA, my teammates and my sensei are on it", 'But dad isn't…'

"You see, for me, those who abandon the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades, those, they are worse than scum."

He left them quietly. They simply stood there thinking about what he said.

"Well, I'm off to go get some gyudon, seeya later.", Naruto told his teammates. He didn't look a bit fazed, but inside, he was strongly affected by all that. It made him think about the implications of his career choice, and how he'd hate to be on that stone.

"I'll just go home and train.", Sasuke said. 'Naruto is stronger than I thought. I need to catch up.

Naruto walked away, looking for a certain sannin he could pester into buying him some gyudon. He couldn't find him, but settled for the next best thing when he saw the Hokage strolling about, apparently in a break from the paperwork.

"Jiji! I passed the second test!"

"Really Naruto-kun? That's impressive; Kakashi is a notoriously difficult jounin to please. Come, we can celebrate in the gyudon shop!", the Hokage said to the boy rather cheerfully.

"You just want to avoid paperwork don't you?", Naruto deadpanned.

"Right as always, now, let's go in.", Hiruzen invited the boy.

… **..…..**

 **Head-hunter jutsu: Used mostly in collaboration with the Underground Fish Projection Jutsu, a jutsu that allows you to go underground and travel in the earth for a limited distance. The Head-hunter Jutsu buries the target in the ground until only the head is left.**

 **Rube Goldberg: An incredibly complicated machine for a rather simple task, named after cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who drew many of those including the famous self-operating napkin.**

 **Unique Henge: As a Jinchuriki, Naruto has very dense chakra. The Kyuubi gives him denser chakra than other Jinchurikis. As an Uzumaki (half Uzumaki, but Uzumaki nonetheless), his chakra is denser than usual. This dual extra density allows his henge to be solid and allows him to use Kage Bunshin greatly with no need of mastery. That's my explanation at least.**

… **.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**I can't breathe, I type as I breath**_

……… **.**

"Not bad, you did well. We can carry on later. Now's the time to do some missions.", Kakashi said to his team.

"Good. This is really tiring! ", Naruto said, panting heavily. The physical training was always the hardest, especially to him since his incredibly high stamina gave Kakashi a reason to give the blond more work to do. At least they can run like real ninja, and jumping trees can really help them out.

"Sensei, I thought we did shuriken training at this time. Why the change?", Sakura asked the masked jounin.

"Reasons, now let's go."

They sweat-dropped. Even now they still aren't used to his rather… different attitude.

They took the roofs, aiming towards the Hokage Tower, where the old Hokage distributes missions. On the way, they saw Iruka taking his students on a field trip, something he seemingly did more and more often these days.

At the Hokage tower, team seven walked towards the old man's office.

"-nd more are being stationed at the north. The civil-oh, hi there Kakashi! How's the team doing?", Orochimaru was apparently not expecting visitors.

"What was that about?", Naruto asked, curious.

"North?, I'm pretty sure Tetsu no Kuni and You no Kuni are North. Tetsu no Kuni is known for its neutrality", Sakura said.

"Don't forget the lands of Rice Patties and Waterfall. Waterfall is an ally, right?", Sasuke added.

"Not bad.", Kakashi decided to say something that can take the genins' kinds off of what they report was not meant for their about..

"Hokage-sama, me and my cute little genin are here to get a C rank mission, any available?", he did his signature eye-smile, where the lone eye curved as he closed it, mimicking a smile.

"Ah, I see, yes we do have a few.", 'Good save, Kakashi.', Hiruzen thought.

"Kakashi-sensei, are you sure we're ready?", Sasuke asked.

"Of Course we are, we'll kick ass!", Naruto yelled, excited at the prospect of a change in routine.

Hiruzen knew just what to give them. That man from Nami, the obviously liar.

"You have a mission to escort a bridge builder to his home country, you must protect him from any thieves or bandits who may usually attack can meet him at the eastern gate at midday tomorrow, as he is at his hotel room currently.", the aging Hokage smiled at the team.

"Well then, we'll be off, we still have time to get some extra training in."

The genin groaned as they followed the jounin, leaving the building. After training on basic weaponry for a few hours, Kakashi decided to call it a day and left, without telling them about it of course. Let's see how long it takes from them to notice.

Sasuke was launching multiple shuriken at a time, but his grip kept slipping when he used more than four. 'Where is that Kakashi, I thought he only needed to check on Naruto for a few minutes. '

He looked around, only to notice that his sensei was nowhere to be found. "Um, Naruto! Sakura! Where is Kakashi-sensei?"

"He's not with you!?"

The three looked around before it dawned on them; "The teme left without telling us!", Naruto yelled.

"...let's just he picked up a few things from the team prankster.", Sasuke suggested.

"K, I'm going home. Seeya tomorrow. "

"Don't forget to pack for the mission!", Sakura yelled at him.

"Fine, I'll remember!"

Naruto left, deciding to ask the old man where Orochimaru was, so he can get him to invite the boy to some gyudon. He was only a genin after all; he can't afford to buy ten bowls of the heavenly food every day.

… **.**

"Again? Why is he always on missions, jiji? I've barely seen him at all this month? "

"Now now, Naruto-kun, he's always needed at some of the more important missions, being a very skilled ninja."

"Fine, fine, I'll just go home without my gyudon.", he used the infamous puppy eyes.

"Actually, Naruto, I can take a break of the paper work, so let's go get some gyudon.", Hiruzen kid always gave him some time off this excruciating paperwork.

"Yay! Let's go now, I'm starving from all this training.", Naruto said excitedly.

They walked into the store and took a ordered for Naruto who not-so-patiently waited for his food.

"So, how's the training going on, is Kakashi a good teacher."

"Yup, the physical training is really annoying; he's always saying how we're too weak, but he already taught us some awesome jutsu! I'm also really good at using kunai and shuriken. By the way, why is it that everyone says how important that skill is? I mean it isn't that strong!", he asked.

"You'll see eventually Naruto, that in advanced fights, brain usually matters more than brawn.'especially in us S-ranks'.

"Anyways, Kakashi said he'll show us this thing called chakra control in the mission. What's that all about? We can already use chakra.", Naruto complained.

"Ah, you see Naruto. Because of what you contain".'plus the genetics',"you have a large chakra capacity, as in a lot of chakra you can use before being exhausted"

"I already know that!"

"Let me continue,that means you have bad chakra have too much to properly control. Some abilities need good chakra control to be able to mold the chakra in the way it needs to be. This also means that when you do a jutsu, you use much more chakra than needed and thus you waste a lot of it.", the old man explained

"And here I thought I can have a nice time with you without it turning into a lesson of some sort", Naruto said.

"Sorry about that Naruto-kun, it comes with the title I have, the 'Professor',I like to share knowledge with others."

"Nice hobby, I'd expect you to turn to knitting, wait, that gives me an idea!", Naruto grinned.

"Please don't prank the Anbu again, they aren't the most patient bunch.", Hiruzen pleaded.

"Ok! Got to go! See ya jiji!", Naruto ran out.

Hiruzen smiled as he ate his food, "Ah, to be young and youthful, it was fun while it lasted.", his eyes them noticed on the pile of empty bowls of gyudon, almost seven full servings.

Well, he could always put it on the shinobi budget, a few hundred Yen won't hurt much...

… **.**

Naruto walked to the eastern gate, five minutes early as he was confident Kakashi wouldn't be late for a C-rank mission. He smiled as he thought of what the mission may entail. Definitely not any ninja combat, but maybe there would be some form of bandit attack where he can practise his combat on the field.

As he got to the eastern gate he noticed something, or rather, the lack of something. Someone. A masked jounin who was going to be pranked so bad, he'll be ashamed to show his face in public for weeks. Now that sentence was a bit ironic.

"Where the hell is he! I honestly thought he might be on time since we'll be leaving the village, but nope, still decided to jerk off somewhere else!"

"We should've seen it coming, it really is our fault", Sasuke thought out loud.

"Not mine, I don't even know the guy, said an old man leaning on the gate, the smell of sake oozing of him.

Naruto looked at him for a while, "The hell are you?"

"I'm your charge, idiot. Name's Tazuna, the super awesome master bridge builder, about to be escorted back to my home by you little brats and that irresponsible sensei of yours.", he answered.

"Glad to see you're all on time,", a voice came from behind the group.

"Gaaah!", Tazuna yelled, with the rest, being used to Kakashi's antics, just rolling their eyes.

"Now that we're all here, let's get going.", he started walking. The genin and their charge followed.

… **.**

"Excuse me, Tazuna-san", Sakura asked the drunkard. He turned towards her. "You're from wave country, right? Are there any ninja in your country?"

As the drunk Tazuna slowly decoded what she said, Kakashi decided to interrupt at this point."Nami no Kuni is an island, naturally protected by the ocean. It has no need for ninja unlike other countries. Many other have ninja villages, though, and the leader of each of the most powerful five gets the right to call themselves _Kage._ The five kages of the world are the Hokage of Konohagakure, the Raikage of Kumogakure, the Amekage of Amegakure, the Tsuchikage of Iwagakure, and the Kazekage of Sunagakure. Each of those rule over thousands of shinobi and are considered the best of the best."

'Wow', was the collective thoughts of the three genin plus drunkard, 'the old man really is that powerful?'

"You just underestimated the Hokage, didn't you?", Kakashi smiled at the three.

"What! No!", the genin yelled. 'Did he just read our minds?'

Kakashi looked ahead and scouted. A puddle on a dry day when it hasn't rained in weeks. Bad hiding method. Chunin at the most. I'll see how this plays out.'

After a few minutes of silent walking, chains flew out of nowhere, wrapping Kakashi in a spiky prison. It pulled, ripping the jounin to shreds. The genin froze, never having seen a death before, Tazuna paled.

As a pair of ninja zoomed in, focusing in on the bridge builder, the genin snapped back into pace .Sakura launched some kunai at them, easily deflected by the attacker, and jumped back to defend the civilian. Sasuke launched a fireball at the pair, while Naruto created a mob of Shadow Clones, armed with kunai, and rushed at them. The two mysterious nin easily destroyed them.

Sasuke rushed in to talk the left one, throwing a spin kick that nearly threw him off guard, Nearly. Sasuke threw in a few punches, but retreated when he avoided being nicked by the blades of a gauntlet on his right arm.

Naruto, on the other side of the road, was creating countless clones to keep the nin on the right away. He felt he didn't want to be stabbed by the peculiar gauntlet on his left arm. Ducking under a wide swipe that brought the chain it was attached to with it, he jumped back and made more clones. He really needed a better fighting strategy.

Sakura noticed how the two nin were connected. One chain ran from gauntlet to gauntlet, most likely to help with surprise attacks,like the one they just did. Maybe if she was able to pin it to the ground with a kunai…

She decided to try out the theory, and threw a kunai at one of the empty spaces within each chain link. It missed and hit the chain itself, bouncing off. She should really take the kunai lessons seriously.

Just as things looked bleak, a masked jounin flew in from the trees, grabbing both enemy shinobi from the head with high speed and smacking them on each other once, twice, and threw them at the ground. Now unconscious, he tied them to a tree trunk for a nearby patrol to find later .

"Kakashi-sensei! You're alive!"

"Sorry to disappoint, but yes I am.", he smiled.

"But how!"

"By not dying. Now, Tazuna-san, mind telling me why two missing nin from Kiri were targeting you?", his sweetness not hiding his anger at the employer.

"Uh, I-I don't know!", he spluttered.

"Tazuna-san, you obviously knew that there was a chance of encountering nin, yet you payed for a C-rank mission, bringing in a group of unprepared genin into this mess. ", now he was not hiding his anger.

"I didn't have a choice, Wave is desperate! Ever since Gato came, we were in poverty! ", Tazuna begged.

"Gato as in Gato shipping, one of the richest people in the world?", Kakashi inquired.

"Yes, he is a short man with a very large shadow, his shipping business is just a cover for what he truly trades in, drugs, slaves, weapons, all sorts of illegal things. He had wave in his eyes, and immidiatly took over. He stopped any shipping or trade and took all we had. The bridge I'm building is the only way for wave to take control of itself once again."

"I see, students, what do you say, should we go on, or return to Konoha?"

"Of course we will go on!", the three of them told their sensei.

"Well, I guess I was out voted. We will go on.", Kakashi eye-smiled at Tazuna.

"Thank you very, very much.", he looked like he was about to cry.

… **.**

As the group walked towards their destination, Naruto had what he can describe as a gut feeling. Acting on instinct he threw a shuriken at a nearby bush. A few moments later, a terrified rabbit jumped away.

"Naruto you idiot! You nearly hurt the little bunny! ", Sakura yelled at him as she held the bunny trying to comfort it.

'The rabbit has white fur, but it's summer. Unless it was raised indoors for…' "Duck!", Kakashi yelled as he dragged Tazuna down with him. The genin ducking with him. A massive blade flew over them, thrown with the intent to slice them in half.

"Not bad, seems you were able to detect the ambush, **Sharingan** **no Kakashi.** ", A man was standing on the blade's hilt, the blade itself protruding from a tree. He was a tall man, bandages covering the bottom half of his face, his headband that of Kiri, but with a scratch over the Kiri insignia.

His blade was over two meters long, curving at the end like a butcher's knife. A semi-circular and a circular opening in the blade's edge, most likely used to decapitate. Not a single scratch on it, though the hilt looked weathered.

"Zabuza Momochi, demon of the bloody mist. I'll have to go all out.", Kakashi stared at the swordsman as he moved the headband up, revealing that he had a second eye where the headband sloped and covered .The eye was red in color, with three spinning tomoes around the iris.

"Ah, the famed Sharingan, pleased to see that you would have it out so early. It seems my reputation precedes me.", Zabuza crouched on the blade.

"Wait, what's the Sharingan?", Sakura asked her sensei.

"The Sharingan, ", Sasuke answered, "Is a doujutsu, or an eye technique, that allows the user to see far better than most, copy ninjutsu, and see through genjutsu." ,'but the Sharingan only appears in the Uchiha clan; my clan.'

"Not bad kid, but you barely scratched the surface. The Sharingan allows the wielder to see in slow motion, predict movements, and see chakra. It gives the user an edge in just about everything, but that won't help much, will it Kakashi?", Zabuza mocked.

'I can't take him on, this was exactly what I hoped would never happen. He never faced the Sharingan before, maybe I can find a trick to escape ', Kakashi stared at Zabuza, emotionless, to hide the turmoil he was going through.

"No matter, Kakashi-sensei can take him on, can't you?", Naruto nervously asked his teacher.

Just as he was about to utter any words, a mist fell down and surrounded them.

"Kirigakure no Jutsu", Zabuza was standing on the water of the nearby river, gathering chakra and creating a thick mist.

"Give me the old man"

A voice was heard from all around them, preventing them from finding him by sound alone.

"I don't think so. Triangle formation! Protect the old man.", Kakashi was looking around.

'I need to get close for some melee'

"8 points", his voice resonated throughout the mis.

"Huh?", Naruto voiced his confusion

"Larynx, spine, lungs, liver, jugular, subclavian artery, kidneys, heart. Now which shall be my kill point?"

Fear was in the minds of the four inexperienced ones, never having felt this level of killer intent before. Shivers went through their spines as they felt movements in the mist, but could not tell its location.

"You were careless, Kakashi. ", Zabuza said, standing in the middle of the formation the genin done to surround and defend the bridge builder. He stood between them, crouching, his sword on his hand stretched out to decapitate all of them.

Kakashi froze, his opponent has got behind in right into his charge. The only thing he could hope for was that Zabuza to play with them, giving them a chance.

Acting on instinct he rushed back, blocked the massive blade with a kunai in one hand, and stabbed Zabuza in his gut with the other.

'Good thing I got him by surprise.'

"Wow, Kakashi-sensei, that was awesome!", Naruto exclaimed.

Water began dripping from the wound Kakashi inflicted.

Zabuza appeared behind him, the clone stabbed by Kakashi turned into water, leaving a large puddle.

"You're finished.", Zabuza calmly stated as he cut Kakashi in half with a wide swing.

The chunks of the masked jounin hit the ground with a thud.

The genin gasped. The bridge builder paled in fear. The chunks turned into water as Kakashi appeared behind Zabuza, kunai aimed at the throat.

"So you copied my Water clone jutsu, most likely using my own mist as a cover."

"Surrender Zabuza, this is the end."

"Hahahaha", he laughed, "This was a smart move. It would've worked", A second Zabuza appeared behind the copy nin, "If my own mist truly hindered me like it would do hinder you. After all, I am a sensor type."

The clone Kakashi was threatening turned into a spray of water .Zabuza swung his sword. Kakashi was fast enough to duck. The swordsman changed direction mid swing and swiped down, the sword digging straight into the ground as Kakashi jumped away.

Changing grip, Zabuza pulled the massive Kubikiribocho out of the ground and ran at Kakashi with speed to match his opponent. He sliced, missing barely, and kicking the jounin dozens of feet into the air, with him falling into the nearby river.

Zabuza jumped into the river.

Kakashi swam up, finding difficulty in his task. 'Why is the water so heavy?', he asked himself.

"Fool", Zabuza appeared behind him, going through six hand signs quickly. The water around Kakashi flew up, surrounding him in a sphere. "Water prison", Zabuza said, his hand in the massive sphere stabilizing it. Doing a single hand sign, a watery body emerged from the river.

"Run! You don't stand a chance against him.", Kakashi told his team. "His water clones can't go too far away from his body."

'Escape? Yeah right. That option was taken away from us the moment you were captured. Even if we evaded the clone, the real Zabuza will soon catch up. No, the only option we have is to free you, but how.', Sasuke pondered. He decided that acting up was the best thing they can do, given the circumstances.

He ran at the water clone, throwing a bunch of shurikens. The clone used its massive blade as a shield. Sasuke jumped up, using the moment it defended itself to surprise it.

'Too easy', thought the clone as it grabbed the diving Sasuke, aiming at its throat with a kunai, holding him by the throat with one hand and throwing him away.

"Sasuke! ", Naruto yelled as he took out a large **fuuma** shuriken, half a metre across, and threw it towards Sasuke.

'So this is your plan, Naruto. Smart.'

Sasuke launched the massive shuriken, not at the clone, but the real Zabuza,

"Smart move kid. But not enough. ", Said Zabuza as he grabbed the speeding fuuma shuriken with his free arm.

"That wasn't my plan"

Zabuza quickly noticed it. "A second shuriken moving in the shadow of the first. Impressive. Still, not good enough." he effortlessly dodged it. This proved to be his undoing as the shuriken popped into a cloud of smoke, revealing the real Naruto, who proceeded to launch a barrage of his own against the nin.

Kakashi took advantage of his capturer's distraction as he forced his way out of the prison.

"Nice plan team, now, let me take care of this", said Kakashi as lightning sparked around his arm, creating a blade of pure energy around it.

"Zabuza, you believe I only know how to copy. Now, witness the **Raikiri** , the lightning blade, my only original move! ", Kakashi thrust his arm forward, even with Zabuza dodging, still caught him in the shoulder. Zabuza cried in anger as he jumped back.

He did several hand signs, only for Kakashi to nearly instantly mimic them on his own. "Water dragon jutsu!", They both yelled, as two massive water dragons formed from the river. They both hit themselves head on, but one of them overpowered the other, plunging straight onto Kakashi.

"Shit!", yelled Kakashi, as he did a Kawarimi and substituted with a nearby backpack.

All this came to an end when two needles flew out of nowhere and hit Zabuza on his neck."Wh...wha", he stammered as fell on the ground, dead.

A small figure landed, having jumped from the nearby trees.

"Thank you for helping me. I have been hunting this one for several months now.", came a young voice.

They all looked at the newcomer, a young person wearing a white mask.

"Who are you?", Sasuke managed to ask.

"From the mask, I assume you are a hunter nin from Kiri.", Kakashi voiced his mind.

"Yes", said the hunter nin, walking towards Zabuza's body.

"How did you do that! Zabuza was so powerful! And you took out so easily!", Sasuke exclaimed, not believing what he just witnessed.

Kakashi breathed in deeply.

"Sasuke, in this ninja world, there are people who are younger than you, yet stronger than me. Thank you for helping us", said Kakashi, now turning to the hunter nin.

"It is my job.", said the nin, carrying Zabuza's body before doing a hand sign and disappearing. Shunshin.

"I think I overused my chakra", Kakashi told his team, panting heavily. He then collapsed, losing consciousness.

"Sensei!", yelled Naruto.

"He must have suffered from chakra exhaustion.", Sakura told the boys.

"My home is only a few miles away .Let us take him there", Tazuna told the genin.

They nodded, Naruto and Sasuke carrying the man together.

Tazuna breathed out, taking a gulp from his Whiskey. Those shinobis are like freaking wizards. That one fight truly terrified him.

… **.**

 **Sharingan no Kakashi: Kakashi of the Sharingan, his nickname as he had a Sharingan transplanted on to him during the third shinobi war.**

 **Fuuma:Demon, a type of shuriken notorious for being incredibly large. The windmill shuriken used by Sasuke measured half a metre in diameter.**

 **Raikiri: Lightning blade, attack first created by Sakumo Hatake, the white fang, and taught to his son, Kakashi. Using chakra, the user surrounds his arm with lightning, making a literal lightning blade.**


	5. Chapter 5

_**An outdated meme.**_

… **.**

"Don't worry, he just needs some rest.", Tsunami told the genin team.

"It'll take a week or so for him to recover.", Sakura added.

"In the meantime, I can fix you some lunch.", Tsunami offered.

The black haired woman, Tazuna's daughter,left to the kitchen, leaving them alone.

"Guys",Naruto began.

"What?",Sasuke said.

"He's unconscious", Naruto implied.

"No 's what happens when you get chakra exhaustion.", Sasuke said.

"Idiot, I mean his mask is just sitting there all unprotected."

Naruto eyed his two teammates.

"...Let's do it", Sakura smirked.

"Idiots.", Sasuke wasn't too willing.

"Come on, what if he has buck teeth, or a massive pimple! Or what about giant lips!", Naruto tried to convince the Uchiha.

"...Fine, let's do it.", he succumbed to peer pressure.

.

.

.

The genin reached towards his mask, with intent to pull it off. Their hands got closer and closer until...

"Mind not doing so?"

"AHHH!", the three of them jumped back as Kakashi woke up in the nick of time.

"Sorry sensei, we just wanted to adjust your mask!", they were terrible liars.

"You guys are terrible liars", Kakashi smiled at them.

"Sorry! We won't do it again!", They said, hoping he won't punish them.

"Any way, when I'm well enough to move, I'll start training you for the next fight with Zabuza."

"Wait, Zabuza is dead, what the hell are you saying", Sasuke paled at the possibility.

"Yeah sensei, the hunter nin killed him!", Sakura assured.

"The hunter nin used senbon, a difficult weapon to use but lethal when applied to primary neck has was most likely put in a death-like state."

"But how!", Naruto yelled.

"With enough skill, it is possible to strike nerves in such a way that the body is put in a comatose state. The hunter nin was most likely an ally of Zabuza."

… **.**

A ninja with a white mask placed a large body on the ground, preparing to do the procedures. The body's right hand quickly grabbed the nin's arm.

"Haku", he growled,"I was about to kill the hell did you do that."

"I felt a large chakra signature nearby, I thought it was a hunter nin."

"Where is it now?"

"It disappeared."

"You're too paranoid. It must have been a passing nin."

"I apologize, Zabuza-sama."

"Never mind, it'll take a week for me to recover fully from your stupid acupuncture. "

"It is effective, you said it yourself"

"Still hurts like a bitch."

"I see", the girl nodded, mixing some herbs for her master.

… **.**

"So not only are we going to face Zabuza, but also his accomplice?"

"Yes Naruto, I'll have to train you enough so you can fight him off. "

"Ah my luck that my first C-rank mission happens to turn to an A-rank."

"So, what will you train us in, sensei?", Sakura asked.

"You'll see."

"I'll go tell Tazuna the bad news", Sasuke volunteered.

… **.**

 _Four days later._

Kakashi walked in crutches, leading his team to a nearby clearing in the woods surrounding the forests of the wave knew exactly what to train them in.

"This is a good place. We can train , climb a tree. It's the training."

"Uh, Kakashi-sensei, we already know how to climb trees.", Sasuke told him.

"Really? Can you do it without any hands?", he smiled.

"How are we supposed to climb trees without our arms? ", Sakura asked, confused.

"Like this.", and he put his leg on the tree and walked up, bringing the crutches with was standing perpendicular to the ground.

"Whoa! How did you do that?", Sakura asked.

"He's using chakra, right sensei?", Naruto said,"I saw Orochimaru do it, never taught me how to do it though. "

"Yes Naruto, I used chakra on my feet to stick to the tree, now try it out yourself."

They ran at the trees, with Naruto and Sasuke nearly instantly falling off, and Sakura climbing to the highest branch from the first try.

"Nice, seems Sakura has the highest chakra control here, but that's only because you were born with a very small amount to begin with, and so you have high chakra control. Keep climbing until you get exhausted,and your capacity will grow.", he told her.

The genin nodded resumed their exercises.

… **.**

It was the time for the last fight of this mission. A week has passed, and the team were walking to the bridge with Tazuna. A slight mist unsettling them, they felt that today was going to be a bad day.

Tazuna in particular felt like something was off.

As they got to the bridge, they saw dozens of bodies lying about, blood pooling around them.

"What happened here!?", Tazuna shivered.

"A ...a...a...demon", one of the workers gasped out.

"What do we have here?", a voice came to looked ahead and in the mist saw the Demon of the Mist, Zabuza, with the fake hunter nin standing next to him.

"Zabuza, we meet again.", Kakashi calmly was depending on his team, or, more of one of his team. A jinchuriki is good to have around.

"Well then, I don't suppose you will give me the old man, will you?"

"Hazard a guess, Zabuza. Sakura, stick to Tazuna, Naruto, Sasuke, get the hunter nin."

As they got into proper formation, the hunter nin jumped to the side, getting some distance from the fight Zabuza and Kakashi were bound to and Sasuke ran at the faker.

As Zabuza brought down a thick mist, he Sharingan has two main abilities, illusions and prediction,and with the mist both are nullified.

… **.**

Sasuke and Naruto stood in front of the nin, kunai in fake hunter nin launched senbon at them, with the Konoha genin dodging or blocking the retaliated by launching their own kunai and started using ninjutsu.

Naruto used the shadow clone jutsu and created a small mob, both to use as attack and had half of them attack to distract him while Sasuke used his fire ball jutsu to attack.

The nin was dodging the fireballs and hitting the clones, realizing that one hit is all it takes for shadow clones to dispel. A punch at a nearby clone and a senbon at another.

Naruto decoded to use his plan now, since the enemy found out that a hit is all it takes, and thus will only attack did the hand signs for Kawarimi to substitute.

With the enemy, a clone supposed to be dispelled by a punch didn't and attacked the enemy with a taijutsu combo.A punch at the face shattered the mask, revealing a face that, for Naruto, couldn't be distinguished whether it was male or female.

Sasuke launched a phoenix fire jutsu, with a large amount of small smirked, with Naruto there, the enemy couldn't dodge.

An ice wall rose from the ground and blocked the fire ball.

Kakashi noticed, realizing what entails."Ice?", he asked his opponent.

Zabuza swung the Kubikiribocho at him, hitting a metal beam substituted with."Haku has a bloodline, the Hyoton, ice release.I found him on the run from the purges."

'Damn, I can't beat Zabuza if he decides to stop toying with ninjutsu is too might be waiting for his comrade to was a mistake'

"This is the time I will end this.", Haku did some hand signs,"A thousand needles of death."

Hundreds of ice needles appeared, levitating in a cloud surrounding moved to the front; aiming at the two genin.

Naruto jumped back to Sasuke and created a swarm of clones to take the brunt of the attack,"Sasuke, I'm running low on chakra", he whispered.

"Me too", Sasuke answered.

"Those needles are chakra made; they will pierce your clones and go right through."

"Well, shit"

The needles moved at high speed, piercing the clones and hitting the two the needles stuck out of their bodies, Haku created more

Naruto was being turned into a porcupine, but Sasuke found ease in seeing and dodging the looked, noticing with ease how the needles were not aimed at any lethal he was, we wouldn't have survived long.

Sasuke charged Haku, leaving behind the unconscious Naruto and rushing his opponent. A flurry of kicks and punches, but Haku simply jumped into the ice was previously made.

"He can jump into those walls?"

Another wall rose a few meters away, and Haku walked out of it.

As he prepared another dose of needles, he felt something.

A chakra surge of gigantic proportions erupted from the end of the bridge, causing the mist to disappear.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the beginning of the bridge.

A large man with long black hair and purely green eyes was watching the two amount of chakra he was releasing was too much for one man to have, but that stranger did.

Zabuza's eyes widened, and he seemed to pale.

"You, are Kakuzo. The Bounty Hunter. Shit.", he stopped fighting, realizing he had no chance of surviving this day.

Kakashi's breathe hitched as he looked at Zabuza. The swordsman was the target.

Poor man. He won't survive any longer.

A pity. Kakashi actually respected Zabuza for his skill and strength.

"Haku", Zabuza shouted.

Haku stopped the barrage."Yes, Zabuza-sama?"

" .This will be the last time we see each other."

"Zabuza-sama, what are you talking about?!", Haku exclaimed, feeling scared. Who was this stranger? Why is Zabuza telling him to leave?

"Just leave. Kakashi, our fight is over. He is after me."

"Seems you know your doom. Good, it'll make it all so much easier. You have plenty of money on your head", Kakuzo's gruff voice came.

Haku jumped towards Zabuza. "I will fight with you, Zabuza-sama"

"No Haku, if there is one good thing I did, it's you. . just promise me that you'll survive", Zabuza looked Haku in the eye.

"...I understand."

Kakashi ran to his team. Zabuza was one thing, but Kakuzo is way over his league. He has to leave now.

"Team, we will be retreating now. Kakuzo has a reputation for causing huge collateral bridge won't be standing, but he will leave once all targets are gone."

"But what about me! Or Wave!? You can't just ditch us!", Tazuna yelled out.

Sasuke looked back at the man momentarily, before turning around. Kakashi was a jounin. He must have a good reason for this.

"Kakashi-sensei, what about-", Sakura began, but was interrupted.

"Our lives take precedence, You're Genin, you aren't suitable for this", he shut her up, leading his team away from all his.

Naruto and Sasuke are too precious to die. Konoha needs them.

And if Sasuke dies, Itachi would be the last Uchiha. Not good, they need another set of eyes if they want to counter Itachi.

Black threads started leaving from the many stitches Kakuzo had in his body, with four large monsters made from said threads standing behind with a separate colours were yellow, red, light blue, and dark blue, symbolizing the elements :lightning, fire, wind, water.

Zabuza raised his blade and rushed the larger man, hoping to at least put up a fight.

Kakuzu's stomped his foot on the ground, causing an earthen wall to burst out of the ground. Zabuza's desperate attack was blocked.

Kakashi carried an unconscious Naruto on his back, quickly running away with his team. .Looking back one last time, he saw a giant explosion breaking away a large chunk of the bridge.

… **.**

"Sasuke", Kakashi said, walking in the forest towards the port. "You can turn off the Sharingan if you were an Uchiha, you know that, right?"

"Of course I know, it is the dojutsu of my clan."

"Then do it", he smiled at the boy.

"What do you mea- I have the Sharingan! ", he yelled He ran towards a nearby puddle and looked at his eyes with a single tomoe each around the iris.

"How do I turn it of?"

"Cut off the chakra flow from your eyes."

"Hmm, ok."

"Aaaaand?"

"What do you mean?"

"Aaaaand?"

"What?"

"Aaaaand?"

"Fine, thank you I suppose."

At this moment Sakura decided to speak her mind. "Kakashi-sensei, what was up with the needles that Haku seemed wet when I removed them from Naruto and Sasuke's bodies. Was it poison?", she asked, fearing the worst.

"No Sakura, they were melting."

"What? How?"

"Haku has a Kekkei Genkai, like Sasuke's Sharingan. Haku's Kekkei Genkai is Hyuton. Ice manipulation. It allows the user to use the ice element, made out of both wind and water mixed together. The Yuki clan was one of the most revered clans in Kiri, but it was killed off during the bloodline purges. Seems Haku was the last one."

The two of them moved in silence,processing what was told to them.

"Kakashi-sensei, are there any other such elements?", Sasuke asked him.

"Of course there is, such as Bakuton and , Konoha has none. But, if you care to know, there exists in the world some incredibly rare bloodlines known as Kekkei Tota, elemental bloodlines with three elements. I have heard of none of them personally, aside from the Tsuchikage, but they do exist."

"Sensei, we finally got to the Port."

"Good, Naruto is really heavy."

The rest of they way back home was quiet. They were all shook by how fast that mission escalated.

… **.**

Team Seven were walking towards the Hokage office, something they haven't done in a long Wave cluster fuck has taken nearly two months, as the port was shut down. They needed quite a lot of threats to get a ship.

Naruto woke up a few hours after they got to the port, and he had a lot of questions, especially since he didn't see Kakuzo.

He did heal remarkably fast though, and not a single scar.

'Kyuubi speeds up his healing, and Uzumaki blood helps out a lot as well', Kakashi thought to himself.

Team 7 entered the Hokage office, with Hiruzen seemingly delighted at seeing them, though he focused more on Naruto, all safe and sound. Good, he would hate for him to be hurt.

"Kakashi", he said,"What took you so long, if you hadn't sent the messenger bird I would've sent a team to rescue you. What happened?", he asked, ulteriorly implying that he was talking about the report Kakashi was supposed to send about Tazuna's lies, rather than the mission itself.

"Mission failed!", Kakashi said cheerfully, smiling at the Hokage

"Explain", Hiruzen said. Kakashi failing a C-Rank. This was bound to be good.

"First we were attacked by the Mist's demon brothers"

"They wouldn't be much trouble for you."

"Then we ran into Zabuza of the mist."

"Oh, that is very bad. How did you survive?"

"Well, Kakuzo joined the party and decided to dance with Zabuza", Kakashi smiled.

Hiruzen stared ahead, deep in thought. "Him again….Kakashi you may leave, the mission's pay will be given to you in your bank account."

'I need to tell Orochimaru about this.'

"Ok, come my cute little genin, let us leave."

Kakashi led them away.

As they walked away from the office, Naruto's curiosity sparked again, hearing the stranger's name.

"Sensei, exactly who is this Kakuzo?", Naruto asked

He sighed, he had to tell the genin about this eventually, about the power structure of the ninja world.

"My Ninja Rank is highest, as you have learned in the academy."

The three of them nodded, remembering Iruka telling them about ranks and such. They use a similar system to measure up missions and shinobi.

"This is not is one more rank that is secret to civilians genin, and early chunin. S-Rank. Zabuza was a very high A-Rank, closing in to the lower tier of -Sama is an S-Rank as well. Kakuzo is a bounty hunter, who kills those with bounties for money. He is one of the stronger S-Ranks, surpassing even Hokage-Sama. Even Orochimaru-sama, the mightiest Sannin, can't defeat him."

.

.

.

"How did he get so strong?", Sasuke asked, his mind instantly sticking onto his brother. Can he get that strong?How strong is Itachi?

"Some have what it takes, others don't. I personally have no idea how Kakuzo is as strong as he is. But, Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto; Kakuzu is not as strong as it can get. When you start going out there on your own, memorize the Bingo Book, know your strengths and weaknesses, and always be prepared to run away if one of those powerful individuals is ever nearby. No shame in escaping to save your life"

"Live to fight another day", Sakura quoted, remembering what Iruka stressed on. What kind of world has she gotten herself into?

Naruto simply looked back at the Hokage office. All this time he thought the old man was really strong. Looks like sometimes, even he can't protect the village from some people.

That's a scary thought.

… **.**

 **TwistDart: Thank you! Will do!**

 **The first chapters are rather silly and comical, but as the story progresses, it'll get more serious. There will still be funny moments, but they'll be a rarity unfortunately.**

 **Next chapter in two days!**


	6. Chapter 6

_**You reposted in the wrong neighborhood, fool.**_

… **.…**

Kakashi walked to Training Ground 3, late as always, but he had a decent reason why this time. He put some forms in his pocket and started jumping roofs to get to his destination quickly. They were probably angry at him for being late, or they got used to it.

He immediately stopped as he found a shop selling Icha Icha at discount prices, already waited for him for an hour and a half; another won't matter much.

… **.**

Naruto was working on fine tuning his chakra control without any help from Kakashi, Team 7 having figured out weeks ago that they can train some more while waiting for the increasingly late jounin. He took a break and looked at his team's progress. Sakura was doing the same, albeit at a much slower pace; she is rather lazy for a shinobi. Sasuke was practicing a new jutsu he learned, fire missile jutsu. Basically, a fireball with a differing shape.

"You done resting yet?", a voice came from behind him.

Naruto, for his credit, was only mildly surprised, the constant sneaking up on by Kakashi made him less panicky.

"Why are you training, is there a problem with my teaching that requires some extra-curricular training? "

"Na, your training is good, it's just that you kinda get bored while waiting for FIVE GODDAMN HOURS FOR YOU! "

"Why are you so angry, I didn't do anything wrong, did I", Kakashi asked innocently.

"What took you so long!"

"Well, I got you some forms to fill as I nominated you for the chunin exams", Kakashi told him, proud to have an actual alibi.

"Did that take five hours?", Naruto asked skeptically.

"No, it took about seven minutes, but I found an Icha Icha discount", he answered with a straight face.

"I shouldn't be surprised, but I am", said Sakura, who just got to the two, "Did you really spend five hours at a store? What is it, a library?"

"Nah, I only stayed there for two hours", Kakashi told them.

"What is this Chunin Exam?", Sasuke asked, walking up to them. He was intrigued.

"It's an exam that makes you chunin."

"I said what does it entail", Sasuke was getting impatient.

"No you didn't, you asked what it is", Kakashi corrected.

"I hate you"

"Love you too"

"Just give us the forms, Naruto sighed.

"Ok, sign them and be at academy room 308 by Sunday, 9:30"

"In the weekend? Lovely", Naruto said.

"You're off free today.",Kakashi told them. He then disappeared in a shunshin. Wonder where would he go.

As Team 7 read the forms, Naruto decided some encouragement would be nice.

"We'll ace this exam! We do have me in the team, after all", Naruto grinned

"Yeah..we will…", Sakura said, nervously. Truth be told, she was scared.

… **.**

It was Sunday morning, with the sun in the sky, and Naruto was walking ahead of his team towards the settled in, and he had butterflies in his was surprised to see Sakura waiting at the team training grounds, since he didn't expected her to to go through with it.

Near the academy gates, he felt it was relevant to talk.

"Ok, guys, how do you think we'll do? Awesome?"

"We will probably find it easy, did you forget that we are the only genin to ever finish an A-Rank mission? Everyone else won't be able to match up to us.", Naruto bragged, not paying attention to his surroundings.

"Big words for small fish.", a boy interrupted, wearing an all black suit that looked like pajama tights shaped like a cat, with war paint on his face. Or makeup. "You think you can back it up? "

"Obviously. Who's asking?", Naruto approached the guy, noting him to be a good two heads taller.

"Ooh, guess shorty likes a challenge. Wanna know who I am?", Kankuro grinned. He'd love to beat up this Konoha shrimp.

"Kankuro!", yelled a blond with her hair braided in six pigtails, a large folded up iron fan on her back. She then hit him with it for good measure.

"What, Temari?", Kankuro groaned, nursing his bruised.

"Idiot, don't antagonize those 'll embarrass Suna like that. "

It was at this that Team 7 looked at their **Hitai-Ate** , noticing the Suna hour glass-like insignia.'Chunin exams as well',they thought.

"Onee-san, come on, I'm just goofing around"

"Shut up and keep moving, or else"

"Gah,I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Kankuro, you're embarrassing Suna", came a low yet audible voice. On a nearby tree branch stood a young boy with large gourd on his didn't seem to have a headband, but he had the Kanji, Love, etched on his forehead. He was standing on the tree branch upside-down.

Kankuro immediately stiffened, palling as dear crept onto his face."Gaara, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!"

"Shut up, or I'll kill you."

Kankuro was silenced.

'Wow, I didn't even sense him, and I sensed Zabuza", Naruto thought. He felt something...growling, inside of him. 'Weird.'

"Let's just leave",Sasuke whispered. They turned around left quickly, heading to the academy. Better leave that scary team to sort out their own problems.

… **.**

In the academy, team seven walked up the noticed, in the second floor nonetheless, a group standing around a door with the numbers 308 on it,blocked by two older genin.

"Idiots, how can room 308 be on the second floor? This is obviously a genjutsu."

"Sasuke you idiot, this was supposed to filter out some of the weaker ones, now we have more competition. ", Naruto told him, annoyed.

"That actually makes sense.", Sakura said. Already they have challenges in their way.

She noted the weirdos standing at the door, blocked by two taller genin.

Sasuke noticed someone interesting, someone he sorta recognized. "You, what's your name?", he asked

"It is impolite to ask without providing your name first.", the white eyed genin, obviously a Hyuuga,said."Didn't your parents ever teach you that?

This seems to trigger Sasuke, rightfully so from a point of view, as he did a quick jab at the Hyuuga, who retaliated.

This was quickly stopped as a boy stopped the two attack. He moved so fast, they didn't see him move.

Sasuke looked at the intruder and nearly blanched. Bowl cut hair, an incredibly tight green spandex that was probably ten sizes too small, and those eyebrows! He had huge caterpillars on his head, they can not be eyebrows.!

"Are you Sasuke Uchiha? ", The boy asked. His eyebrows wiggled.

"Uhhh, yes", that spandex left too little for the imagination.

"Pleased to meet you .Now fight me."

"Wait what?", Sasuke pulled his eyes away from those monstrosities. "Hn, a fight? Fine, it'll be quick.", he was never one to refuse a challenged, as long as it isn't some loser like Kiba back at the academy.

Both teams sighed, following the two challengers to a nearby room.

The teams walked into a large empty arena in room 204. The two combatants walked to the center and took their positions, prepared. Sasuke turned on his Sharingan, red eyes swirling around wildly. The boy then moved. He moved so fast, that even the level 1 Sharingan saw a blur, |sasuke's body was not nearly fast enough to react.

The boy kicked the Uchiha in the abdomen, causing Sasuke to fly up in the air. Bandages wrapped around his arm unfurled as the boy wrapped Sasuke's body with them, suddenly appearing behind him.

A large puff of smoke as a giant turtle appeared." LEEEEE! What are you doing! This move is only to be used when I tell you to use it!"

Lee quickly stopped the piledriver-like move and immediately jumped to the turtle, kneeling.

"I'm sorry sensei! I should not have done that!"He yelled, crying. "I will do ten laps around the village on my thumbs!"

"Lee…"

A man appeared over the turtle, he looked, oh god. It looked like Lee was a perfect clone of this bowl cut hair, the spandex green suit, and the eyebrows! They were even larger if possible!

"Lee...I forgive you",he smiled.

"THANK YOU GUY-SENSEI! But I will still run ten laps around the village on my thumbs! "

"And Lee! I will do them with you! And if you fail to do them I will run twenty laps around the village on one arm!"

"And Guy-sensei, if you fail to do so I will run one hundred laps around Fire Countr-"

"Shut up both of you!", a girl wearing a pink shirt, her brown hair in two circular buns, yelled as she grabbed them both by the ears.

"Ten-Ten! How youthful of you to join us! Lee here has just youthfully defeated an opponent, but he was about to use a most unyouthful will now run around fire country to-"

"No you won' will leave to the jounin lounge so we can take the exams. Understood? "

"Ten-Ten, you are so unyouthful, we need to cleanse your soul from-"

"Please stop.", she pleaded.

"Don't worry Ten-Ten, you will feel youthfulness if it is the last thing I do.", Guy gave her a thumbs up as he smiled, blindingly white teeth showing.

As Guy left, Ten-Ten grabbed Lee by the ear and dragged him to a bemused Neji, who proceeded to leave with what appeared to be his defective team.

"Well, that was an experience worth I'd like to see if they pull through with those laps. Let's go.", he led the team to room 308 and they saw a large number of teams sitting there. 'At least 200 teams.', he thought.

Sasuke, who was already grumpy from being kicked around by that weirdo, became more depressed as he saw another fangirl, a rather touchy one.

"Sasuke-kun!", Ino Yamanaka yelled as she latched onto , with difficulty, shook her off, and stood in a cornel quietly.

"Hey there, Shika, Choji.", Naruto greeted Shikamaru Nara and Choji Akimichi.

"Hey, Naruto, you're here too? Troublesome."

"Hi Naruto", Choji said.

They waited, having small talk, until team 8 came by.

"Heeey Naruto! What's up?", Kiba Inuzuka spoke

"H-hi Na-Naruto...hi", the shy Hinata Hyuuga piped in.

"Good morning, Naruto-san", Shino Aburame.

"Hi guys, been awhile, eh?", Naruto answered.

"Yes it was, how are you doing?", Kiba asked.

"You know, you guys should keep 're making a bad impression.", A boy about four years older said.

"What do you mean?", Shino asked.

"Look at the other teams.", many older teams were glaring at them. "They see you as rookies", he said. "Never took the exam before."

"Who the hell are you?", Kiba asked the genin.

"Kabuto Yakushi, at your service", he fixed his glasses.

"Kabuto-san, have you taken the exams before?",Sakura asked.

"Yes I did, seven times in fact."

"Wait what? Seven time?", Naruto stared at him.

"This is my eighth, the exams are bi-annual, so this is the end of my fourth year.", Kabuto told the rookie genins.

"Wow, you suck!", Kiba told him, loudly.

"Or maybe the exams are incredibly did allow me to collect intel.", he said.

"Intel? Care to share?",Sasuke said.

"These are my info cards", Kabut said, pulling out a stack of small cards. "By using chakra, these cards can show information I have."

"Tell me about Gaara from Suna and Lee from Konoha, and Shino Aburame", Sasuke said.

"Ah yes, let me of the Sand, son of the Kazekage, been on 6 D-Ranks, 14 C-Rank, and 1 it seems, he has never been hurt before, even the A-Rank. Rock Lee is a genin from and Genjutsu skills are nonexistent, but his Taijutsu skills are seems to lack the ability to use and mold chakra.", Kabuto informed the gang.

"And Shino?", Sasuke inquired

"Shino of Konoha's team in Taijutsu and Genjutsu, with excellent Ninjutsu has completed 26 D-Ranks and 4 C-Rank."

"Hn, I see.", Sasuke said.

"I do have some advice for you though, avoid the team from Ame, they seem to be far stronger than others are also good, you need to be careful, if you pass the first test, that is.", Kabuto warned the rookies.

Naruto took a look around the large room, full of desks and chairs, a classroom, it seems.A giant one at saw some familiar faces, that kid Lee with the girl, Ten-Ten, was it, with the Hyuuga he never caught the name decided to talk to the walked towards them, regretting his decision as Lee immediately saw him and shouted something about youthful friends and jumped to greet him.

"Naruto! How youthful of you to meet us!"

"How do you know my name?", he immediately noticed this small detail.

"Of course I know the name of my eternal rival! We will youthfully compete for the position of the most youthful genin in Konoha!", Lee yelled at Naruto, who was about six inches away.

"...What?", Naruto was legitimately confused as to what was going on.

"Just ignore him, he is rather...youthful. Anyway, how are you doing Naruto-san?", Ten-Ten said.

"Um, I'm fine, how does he, or you for that matter, know my name?", 'Did they ask that Kabuto guy?'

"Guy-sensei told is your sensei's eternal rival, so he told his favorite student who is Kakashi-sensei's favorite student for a new generation of eternal rivals.", Ten-Ten informed him.

"I am so confused, I don't know what to say.",Naruto said.

"Yeah, sensei can be a bit...well, youthful, I can't really describe him in any other , I'm Ten-Ten, pleased to meet is Neji", she pointed at her third teammate, the Hyuuga.

"Cool, any interesting missions you can tell me about, always nice to hear a senior's story."

"Nah, they were pretty generic, you definitely won't notice anything you haven't done.",she said.

"I doubt that, my luck with missions is pretty weird.", Naruto rubbed the back of his head.

"Please do tell",she loved the prospect of hearing stories; reminds her of when her parents told her stories of when they worked with the legendary sannin, Tsunade.

"Well, in my first C-Rank, we were attacked by a bunch of chunin, then we got attacked by the demon of the mist, Zabuza, ya know, one of the seven swordsmen of the mist. We also had a run in with S-Rank shinobi, Kakuzo.", he half-told, half-bragged.

"...Wow", it took here time to process all of this. From her hobby, she knew of the seven swordsmen and their power, especially Zabuza, famed for slaughtering an entire academy full of trained students when he was seen unfit for shinobi could only imagine how strong that Kakuzu was, she could ask Guy about him later.

"Impressive resume", she said. "How did you survive all this?"

"Coincidence and no small amount of luck.", he laughed.

At this moment a large man appeared in the middle of the room with a puff of smoke. His scarred face the only part visible between his large black trenchcoat and the bandana he wore on his head.

"Listen up maggots! Get yourselves seated or I'll send your asses out. This is the written part of the test, so listen up to the rules! My name is Ibiki Morino, I am the bastard that will protract the first stage of the exams, and make your life hell!",he yelled at a minute in and they already felt intimidated by the exam.

After they got seated, papers were passed to the group as assistants appeared in puffs of smoke.

"Listen up bucketheads, each of you have ten every answer you get right, you'll keep a point. For every mistake you idiots make, you lose a point. You have ten question, nine of which are on the paper, the tenth will be given when their is fifteen minutes of the given hour is remaining. This is a team assignment, so you need a total of fifteen points to one of you gets a zero, the whole team 't you dare cheat, whenever you cheat, you lose Two Points, you hear me!", he shouted at them had a sadistic grim on his face. "Begin"

Naruto flipped the paper, glanced at the questions, then flipped it over questions weren't chunin exam question, they were S-Rank can't be serious, can they? This shit can not be looked at them was like telling a five year old to do advanced Calculus. He glanced Hyuuga was sitting next to him, looking saw that Kabuto kid adjusting his glasses, noticing a reflection in the he cheating?That was a pretty impressive sighed as he looked at the paper, deciding to try and figure them out.

Twenty of the allotted fifty minutes passed, and Naruto was close to yelling in frustration.A slew of genin were disqualified as one of them cheated five , how they literally give you four chances before you are kicked out. He looked at Hinata, and raised an eyebrow when he saw veins bulging around her was she using her Byakugan...unless she was cheating.

A large amount of cheating was going used his Sharingan to mimic a genin's hand movement and write what he Hyuuga used his Byakugan to look around. Ten-Ten used her excellent eyesight to peer at the reflection on the figured it out on his own and used Shadow Possession to possess Choji's body and write down the used her clan techniques to transfer her mind to an apparent know it used a clever tactic where he used to puppet on his back to impersonate a procter and leave to the bathroom with the puppet acting as a watch. Garra created an eye out of sand and used it to spy had his puppy look around from his head, a vantage point, and bark down the had a fly spy at the didn't have a single information gathering was screwed.

"Alright maggots! Times up! Time for the tenth question! But before you say anything, there is a special rule for may choose to take the tenth you choose not to, you and your team are forfeited from the may try again in six month.",Ibiki said.

"That's stupid, then why would anyone forfeit! ?", Kiba yelled.

"Let me continue you loudmouth. Anyone who takes it and fails to answer it will loose the exams, and never be allowed to take the ever again!", he grinned maniacally.

"Well,", Naruto said, "Shit".

… **.**

 **Hitai-ate: Headband, all ninjas are required to have a headband on, not necessarily on the forehead, as proof of what village they belong take pride in it, seeing it as a symbol of their loyalty to their village has unique insignia on the headband.**


	7. Chapter 7

_**Make Konoha great again!**_

 _ **Vote Danzo for Hokage.**_

… **.**

"What the hell kind of rule is that? There are genin who took this test more than once!",Temari yelled.

"Well then, you just are unlucky enough to have me as the protractor for this round of the exam. Make your choice now, maggots.", Ibiki laughed.

Naruto looked around, nervously, seeing teams quitting by the dozen. He noticed Hinata next to him preparing to raise her arm in the air to forfeit.

"Don't", he said in a hushed nodded quickly, looking down and slightly 's too shy for her own good.

"Any more want to leave? I guess not…", Ibiki said, then grinning.

"All I have to say is, You Pass!", he shouted, his voice resonating around the large room.

"...What..", was the intelligent reply by Naruto.

"Like I said, you pass", Ibiki told him.

"But what about the tenth question?", Sakura asked the special jounin.

"There is no tenth question, you all pass",he told the remaining teams.

"I don't get it.",Shikamaru said to Ibiki. "What is the use for the first nine questions if we pass anyways."

Ibiki sighed, feeling disappointed at Shikaku's son. Sure it was pretty vague, but he expected the boy to get it.

Another look at him, noting the rather challenging look on the kid's face, made Ibiki smile. Seems he did get it, but was trying to confirm his own theory.

"Information", Ibiki said, "Is one of the most important things to nine questions are to check your information gathering questions are hard in a way that makes it impossible for chunin candidates to answer. We snuck in two chunin who knew the answers to make sure you can find ways to get the correct information. As for the last question I talked about, whether you stay or not can, in a way, be it. As chunin, you are forced to make decisions that aren't always black or white. It can be going on a mission with a team that can kill them. You need the guts to take risks and chances.", at this he took off the headband, showing multiple large scars on his bald head. "You can be captured and tortured, but you must always remember, the price of information is higher than your life. Don't crack",he said.

"Morbid", Naruto commented.

"This is the life of shinobi.", Ibiki looked at Naruto.

Suddenly, the window broke as a banner was thrown in, supported by kunai, and was fixes on the ceiling as the surprised genin read what was on it. 'The sexy and single protractor, Anko Mitarashi'.

Just then, a woman jumped in and stood on the desk in front of was wearing a fishnet shirt with a brown trenchcoat and a rather short skirt.

"You're early, Anko.", Ibiki said.

"Really, I am? Well I guess we have to deal with it, don't we? ", she smiled.

"Who the hell are you?", a genin said.

"Can't you read, I'm the protractor for the second exam."

"Wait!", Naruto yelled, pointing at her,"You're Anko!?"

"You know me?", she gave him a smile similar to Ibiki's. She knew the kid, obviously, and thus wanted to make his life a living hell. No one competes with her for the title of Orochimaru's favourite!

"Orochimaru told me about you.", Naruto corrected.

"Ahh, you're the one sensei babysits. A little on the short side, are we?"

"Hey! I'm not short, I'm young!", he objected.

"Anyways, shorty,", she said, ignoring a yell of 'Hey' that came at her. "In an hour, go to training ground 44, remember to pack up! This is going to be a pretty long trip.", she smirked at the genin. "48 teams, Ibiki? Are you getting soft on me?"

"Maybe we have an exceptional batch this time.", Ibiki stated.

"Doesn't matter, I'm gonna take out at least half of them", she looked at the genin.

"Uh..what do you mean... take out?", Sakura asked.

"You'll see", Anko laughed darkly, "You'll see"

A shiver went through the spine of each and every genin, save one exception.

… **.**

48 groups of three stood in front of a large dark forest. A large metal fence showing the border of the forest. Caution signs strewn all around it.

"Good to see you midgets are on time. This thing, my children, is called training ground 44. I call it The Park, but most jounins call it The Forest of Death .Nice ring to it, eh?", at this point, a gigantic roar came from the forest.

"That's nice and all, but why are we this close to it?", Naruto asked the probably insane can't be that bad, can it.

"You're going to be in it for a week or so.", she answered nonchalantly.

"What!", a Kiri genin yelled at her.

"Lemme tell you guys the objective. Half of you will get a Heaven scroll, the other half will get an Earth scroll. At least, this is protocol, but to make it more interesting for myself, two of you won't have a scroll."

"You're insane",Kankuro from Suna said.

"We have the first team without the scroll, who's next?", she looked around.

"Ah you, from Kiri", she pointed."You guys are too quiet, me no likey", she laughed.

"90 percent of the teams didn't utter a letter and you single us out?", the one who appeared to be a leader said.

"Deal with should get the opposite scroll. In the seventh day, the tower in the middle of the forest will open, you should be there with both sign these forms for me kiddies."

Anko turned around, but kept her attention on the team from Kiri. Nice tactic, pretty sneaky, but those three are obviously not Genin.

She pulled out a few forms and showed them to the teams.

"What are those for?", Sasuke asked.

"So when you die, you can't take legal action against me, or rather, your 't want to get sued, would I?", she laughed.

"You're insane. ", Naruto stated.

"Thank you sweetie", she cooed.

… **.**

"This won't be that hard", Naruto announced to him teammates. They were waiting for their team to get a scroll. Each team entered a tent to sign the form and get the scrolls away from any peeping eyes.

"I bet this forest is just overrated, I ain't scared.", he said. He was about to say something else, but stopped as a kunai flew past his face. He felt a rather large chest presses against him as someone stood pressed behind him.

"You know,", Anko whispered, licking the blood dripping from the cut the kunai she launched caused, "The brave ones usually die first, if you want to see, I can arrange for you to begin at the most dangerous part of the forest.", she grinned maniacally.

'This woman is insane; she's even more of a lunatic than that big guy in the written test.', Naruto thought.

"Come on now, your team should go get the scroll. Make sure you sign the forms.", Anko said.

The members of team 7 walked to the tent quickly, where they got a Heaven scroll, meaning they needed an Earth scroll.

"I nearly forgot, don't open the scrolls till the test ends, wouldn't want any blood in the dirt, it's bad for the trees.", Anko yelled to the chunin wannabes.

Team seven walked quickly, getting their destination from the tent, gate ran around the large forest, till finally finding said waited patiently, deciding to work on a plan.

"We should plan for food first. And water.", Naruto proposed.

"No, a shelter is better, we need a hiding spot for when we need to rest.",Sakura argued.

"The other genin are the threat. We should try a raid and loot plan.", Sasuke said.

" a horrible idea. Contrary to what you think, we are not invincible, or did you forget about bushy-brows already?", Naruto mocked.

"Shut up, it was a fluke.", Sasuke glared.

"Boys, break it up, we need a plan first. ", Sakura tried to act as peacekeeper.

"Why would you care, it's not like you have a use. Just a burden.", Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

Sakura looked hurt, staring at Sasuke who just turned around. After all the shit they went through together, this is what he sees her as?

"Jeez, douche move teme",Naruto said.

"Hn"

"Burden!? Well I guess this burden won't stand in your way any more!", Sakura ran to the other side and sat silently.

"Great job breaking up the team, Sasuke-teme.", Naruto said.

"Hn, shut up.", Sasuke glared at him.

Naruto walked over to Sakura and said a few things, he then went to Sasuke and said, "Look now teme, we're all stressed out, no need to be a jerk, now if you apologize to her, I'll teach you a move Orochimaru taught me.", Naruto said.

"Fine, it better be a good move.", Sasuke said.

He walked over to Sakura and talked for while. They then walked towards Naruto.

"Fine, I apologized. What next."

"I think our best bet is to scavenge, since most others would be should avoid the wild life. Too dangerous."

"Good enough",Sasuke said. Shit, in his opinion, but in this forest, they can't afford any infighting.

Before he was able to say any more, a loud bell was heard and the gate opened, allowing them entry walked inside, feeling a cold breeze touch their faces.

"Guess it's time to put that lousy planning to good use.", Sasuke said.

… **.**

Team 7 ran North in the had found a river and were following it discreetly. They would try and find a good location for an ambush. Birds flew around, looking for one would suspect the small songbirds to be transformed bunshin. One popped as it found a team preparing a shelter.

"Guys, I got one. A Kiri team.I think they were the same ones that didn't get a scroll, but they had an Earth scroll, must be tired from a battle. We're still 100% so this should be do you think?", Naruto asked.

"Good target, you sure they have an Earth?", Sakura said.

"Positive", Naruto answered.

"Then let's go team",Sasuke smiled. ' is easy.

They traveled east for a few minutes, until nearing a clearing, they stopped. Un it was the Kiri trio, sitting down and resting.

They looked at the team, sizing them up.

A boy a bit older than them with a shaved head and blue military-style clothing was making a fire. Idiot. A girl the same age was building a makeshift shelter and the third boy was skinning a large were very careless indeed.

"We know you're there, no need to hide.", the shaved boy yelled out. 'That one to the left has too much chakra...is he the Jinchuuriki? Chojuro said that Suna were the ones sending their Jinchuriki'

'How did they sense us?', Sasuke thought.

Team 7 jumped down into attack formation.

"You guys are tired and we're still good to go, let's end this diplomatically and we'll accept a surrender.", Naruto said.

"Hmmm, I think not", the same boy said. "Nami, Sora, I'll get this.", he smiled.

"Bad idea",Naruto said.

"We'll see.", the boy looked at the river for a while before doing a couple of handsigns.

"What's this?", Sasuke asked no-one in particular.

"Water style:hidden mist jutsu."

"This shit again!?", Naruto yelled.

The boy held his arms out as two blades came from his sleeves, each about a meter in length, sealed obviously. He disappeared into the mist.

" is can't see a thing!", Naruto yelled.

They got closer, in a delta formation, escalated quickly.

"Guys, we need to get out, they also can't see-Duck!", Naruto sensed someone coming in quickly, saving his team from being cut in tried leaving the clearing, only to stop as a water missile crashed in front of them.

"That was aimed too good for it to be luck.", Sasuke said, "We're too quiet for them to hear through the chakra mist, since Kakashi-sensei told us it dampens sound."

"That's simple, they're sensor types.", Naruto said.

"What?", Sakura said as they moved away from an attack.

"Sensor types can sense chakra, I'd know since I'm one myself.", Naruto said.

Sakura nodded. She did learn in the academy that from the five largest nations, Mizu had the most sensors, with Rai being the second.

Sasuke shot a fireball at an area he saw a shadow . He froze as a blade went through his mid-section. He yelled in pain as another cut his arm.

"Sasuke!", Naruto yelled as he made a large mob of shadow clones and ran to him. A water missle hit him, showing him off balance. 'Fuck it hurts', he thought.

Sakura ran towards the sound too, only to be stopped as a water sphere traveling at high speeds slammed into her. She felt shuriken stab at her shoulder as she tried to get to her team.

Naruto was making some more clones when a blade stabbed him, pinning him to the ground. His shoulder burned in pain as the blade was taken out, another aiming at his neck.

"Stop! The scroll is in my jacket's left pocket!", Sasuke yelled.

Naruto saw the mist dispersing as the blade user jumped could sense it was the girl who was throwing around ninjutsu as her chakra went down the most. The third boy seemed to be using tools. Those three wrecked them.

Naruto looked at his team,checking for injuries.

Sasuke was bleeding heavily, his Sharingan spinning wildly, two tomoes seen. His left arm was pressed on his mid-section and his right was bleeding as well.

Sakura was clutching her bleeding right arm and was breathing difficulty. She seemed to have been hit by a ninjutsu.

They were outmatched since the beginning.

The mist user took the scroll and put it at his belt. His team then left as he followed.

Naruto got up and walked to Sasuke, Sakura did the same. Best they lick their wounds for now, they can worry about the scrolls later.

"We need to find shelter, and rest up while Sasuke recovers.", Naruto said.

"Ok",Sakura said, obviously worried.

Naruto himself was worried. Their teammate was injured, they had no scroll, and they were vulnerable in the forest, being in a numerical disadvantage.

This was bad.

… **.**

Team 10 were running on the tree tops, looking for a team to was the second day, with five were yet to find a Heaven scroll.

"Guys,th-there is a team a-ahead", Hinata stuttered.

"Awesome we can kick their asses and get a scroll.", Kiba yelled.

"Quiet down, Kiba, we don't want to ruin our if the team had an Earth scroll, we can trade it with a team who have double Heaven scrolls.", Shino planned.

"Yare, Yare, we finally get to fight though!", Kiba grinned.

They soon found the team, or rather, team from Suna was confronted by a team from Kiri, it seams.

"You know, you shouldn't fight us, we're too ahead.", said a boy in blue clothing to the Suna team.

"Mother calls for your blood.", said the youngest from Suna.

"...What? Weird one are you?", the Kiri team laughed a bit.

The girl did some hand signs, and a large water ninjutsu appeared, flying at high speeds at the Suna team. Sand immediately appeared, effortlessly blocking it.

"Sand, what the hell?", she asked.

"Mother calls for your blood.", he said again.

The young boy, with a psychotic look in his eyes, raised his fist, sand appearing out of the gourd on his back and rushing at one in blue jumped away, dodging, but the sand instantly changed trajectory, grabbing the boy.

The young redhead grinned, as he closed his fist, ordering the sand to squish the trapped genin.A shower of gore rained on them, as he turned into paste. Blood and guts rained on the Kiri team, but the Suna team were protected by a sand barrier.

"More blood!", the boy yelled teammates stepping back from him, fearfully.

Team 10 had enough and ran away at full , Kiba's dog, was whimpering at this was traumatized by the amount of gore they just was on the verge of collapsing, but Shino was simply staring forward.

… **.**

Naruto was gathering food when he found a deer, and obviously took the opportunity and launched a kunai at it. Bullseye, headshot. He grinned, happy that they had food to last a couple wondered how his team was doing. He and Sakura took turns watching Sasuke, who developed a fever from the blood loss, and nearly went into shock.

This exam was not going well, but hopefully they can survive it with no permanent injuries.

He carried the dead deer with a clone, and rushed back to base. He was sure they all were sick from foraging mushrooms and herbs, even with Sakura's cooking.

He ran for a few minutes, looking out for the giant monsters, they already were attacked twice by fifty foot snakes, and the tiger nearly killed them.

"Naruto, what's that?", Sakura asked him when she saw him approach the hollow tree they took as a makeshift was in the ground, a cloth wrapped around his torso.

"How you doing, tough guy?",Naruto asked.

"Not as good as you",Sasuke said. They discovered that Naruto heals rather quickly when they found out that his shoulder wound pretty much disappeared without a scar in a day or so.

"Found this deer, guess we can have barbeque today."

"That's nice...so, any plans for the scrolls?", Sakura asked.

"When we recover, we can go to the tower and ambush a team. We get both scrolls in one go.", Naruto said.

"And I suppose we won't fight a team magnitudes stronger than us?", Sasuke said.

"If they were, we just already don't have anything they want, since they probably have both already. ", Naruto explained.

"Sound strategy",Sakura complemented.

"Let's just rest and recover for now. ", Naruto said.

"We should move soon though, only four days left.", Sasuke grunted.

"Good point, teme.", Naruto answered.

… **.**

Team 7 stuck gold, seems for every event of bad luck, they are shined upon by means that they must stay on their toes, from whatever will happen.

They were attacked by yet another snake, and after it ate Naruto, he created a large mob of clones inside of it, causing the snake to explode from the increase of Naruto's inside of it.

In the remains, they found a bunch of Konoha headbands and some pieces of clothes. Grim, but they have also found an Earth scroll, so the dead team's loss is their gain.

They just hoped it wasn't one of their friends.

They moved on looking for a team with a Heaven spent the whole day looking without any luck

"Uhhh, this is so hard, if only we can find a team, we can at least trade.", Naruto whined.

"Baka, we only have one scroll, it won't work", Sakura yelled at him.

"I was thinking Kage Bunshin and Henge.", Naruto told her.

"Wait, I have an idea", Sasuke started.

"The protractor is the student of a sannin, she won't buy it.", Naruto intervened.

"Crap, though it could work with a random team.", Sasuke said.

"Just a minute.", Naruto made a clone that transformed into an Earth scroll.

"Smart, an Earth scroll so the team won't wonder why we're trading our perfect pair.", Sasuke complemented the forward thinking.

"The sun is setting, let's rest and go to the middle tomorrow. Wouldn't want your wound to reopen, Sasuke.", Naruto said.

"I saw a hollow tree a few metres back, we can go there.", Sakura said.

… **.**

Team 9 was running through the forest, all realising that this was the fourth time they passed by that broken boulder. They were waiting for the genjutsu users to make their move.

A kunai sped through from the greenery, causing the team to easily dodge. Neji activated his ocular power, seeing through the entire area for a large distance.

"Let's play along for a while", he whispered to his team, Ten-Ten and Lee.

A large mass of people rose from the ground, traveling through it. They were all wearing sallow colored jumpsuits, and came in three variations, a band covering the eyes that had a hole for both, or one, or incompletely covered the eyes. They had breathing masks on.

The figures stared, Ten-Ten launched a kunai at one, only for it to go right through the clones seemed to be illusions, but the volley of kunai launched at them seemed to say otherwise.

Neji quickly deduced the enemy plan, using his eyes to see the true enemy was a good plan by the Ame genin, but useless against the Byakugan.

They used the clones to camouflage themselves, and used the **underground fish projection** jutsu to peek out from the ground and attack with the kunai. For the naked eye, it seemed that the clones were attacking, but his Byakugan and Ten-Ten's exceptional vision saw the genin attack from behind the clones.

He used his superior speed to attack the one eyed genin from behind his cover, and paralyzed his with a **Jyuken** combo, stripping him from his chakra.

He saw Lee catching on and using his **Konoha Senpu** to his one of them in the spine. Ouch.

Ten-Ten launched a volley of precisely aimed kunai with explosive tags attached to them. Boom. He probably died from the large explosion her custom tags make.

"Shit, how did they find us so fast Mubi?", the paralyzed genin asked.

"My Byakugan can see through genjutsu, and Ten-Ten has above-excellent eyesight. Lee is very fast. Give me your scroll if you want to make it out alive.", Neji said.

He gave Neji his scroll, a Heaven scroll. Shit, they already had a Heaven scroll.

… **.**

"Guys, a team is headed right at must've somehow found us.", Naruto said.

"What? We're using the tree branches and zigzagging, how are they following us?", Sakura looked behind.

Naruto stared for a while before realizing. "Sasuke, why didn't you tell us your wound reopened?", he said sternly, slightly angry at him.

"I don't need your help, it's fine.", Sasuke looked ahead.

"Uchiha or not, you're human, you're not invincible. ", Naruto said. "The dripping blood is making a ego just doomed us, jerk."

"Naruto, we can lose them, no need to-"

"We can't, they're faster, maybe if we weren't leaving a track, we wouldn't be in this situation", Naruto interrupted Sakura.

They stopped, knowing that they may be able to negotiate an escape.

The enemy team, one from Ame, stopped in front of them. The girl stepped forward, apparently the leader, and said: "We have two heaven scrolls, if we can trade, we can avoid a fight and save our energy for later."

'A diplomatic suggestion first. So they need an Earth, awesome.' "We have two Earths, wanna trade?", Naruto waved the transformed Earth scroll.

"Yes", she said as she walked forward towards Naruto. The blond nervously gave her his scroll as she handed him a Heaven. She mistook his nervousness as worry of an ambush and brushed it off.

"Thank you ,beware from opening the scrolls early, that would end badly. Try to get to the tower as soon as possible so you can evade any last day traps.", she told them.

"Wait, we can go into the tower early? The protractor said we can only do so on the last day.", Sakura piped in.

"It's a lie, don't really know why she said so", she said.

The teams quickly left each other, not really trusting the other.

As team seven went a good distance away, Naruto said: "That ended way better than I expected. Kage Bunshin really are awesome. We better get going though, after a while the scroll will pop."

"Guess we might just win after all", Sakura smiled. At least she didn't cause them to lose.

… **.**

 **Underground Fish Projection: the user hides in the earth and can move in it, best used for sneak attacks.**

 **Jyuken: Gentle Fist style of the Hyuuga clan,the Hyuuga uses the Byakugan to see the chakra pathways in the body, and touches them gently, while releasing chakra into them causing excruciating Hyuugas can see the Tekensu, points or nodes on the pathway that, if struck, will cause even more pain and block the chakra movement, thus can stop the target from using ninjutsu. Useless on S-Rank nin.**

 **Konoha Senpu: Move in the Strong Fist, or Gokken, in which the user spins wildly, like a top, and hits the target. Requires severe heavy body conditioning to use properly, like all Gokken moves.**

 **Whew. 4k words. Short compared to my later chapters, but for when I first wrote it, it took me a while.**

 **Hope you enjoyed it!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Me me big boy**

… **.**

Team seven thanked their lucky stars as they finally found the tower. They came across an apparent ambush by team 8 on a team from Yumegakure, and the two teams helped each other finish off the weakened opponents and joined forces to get to the tower safely. Many believed that getting to the destination was the most dangerous, as they would think to set camp near it and trap any passerby who wanted to get to the tower and finish up.

They probably are right, but Teams 7 and 8 didn't face such problems, most likely because they were a large crowd. Numbers mattered when it came to genin, after all.

The tower offered them rest for the next two days until time ran out, and they took it gladly. Sasuke got some fixing, but the protractor's assistants didn't allow full healing. They quickly deduced that it was because the test was not over yet, and there was a second part after the week in the wild ended.

When time ran out and the doors closed down, the chunins manning the tower called all the teams to a large empty area in the tower's bottom floor. There was a small podium upon which stood the Hokage, the insane protractor, and an ANBU that was dressed in all white, strangely enough.

A balcony of some sorts with metal railing spanned three of the four walls at an elevated height from the ground, roughly six metres above. A large screen was on the wall hanging above the podium.

"Quiet up maggots!", Anko Mitarashi yelled at the crowd of tired genin standing in the middle of the room. "The Hokage has something to say."

The aged short man stepped forward, clearing his voice before saying: "Genin from all over the elemental nations, I wish to congratulate you for making it this far in the exam, and I want you all to know that you make your villages proud. Before we move in, I must ask you if you know the true reason the chunin exams are made. Any ideas?", he smiled at the crowd.

"True purpose? Isn't it here to promote us to chunin?", Shikamaru Nara asked.

"You must learn that in this ninja world everything, and I do mean everything, has some sort of ulterior reason or motive. You see, the exams were made as a substitute for war during times of peace. The villages get to show off their strengths to each other and to the possible clients that would see the finals. Speaking of the finals, I can see that seven teams have passed. Excellent, but that means too many."

"Too many? What do you mean?", Kankuro asked from the back of the crowd.

"The royal clients who would see the exams would want a small amount of quality matches. Twenty one genin would make too many matches, you is why we will have preliminary matches to lower the amount."

"But some of us just got here! We're exhausted!", a genin yelled.

"Too bad, you can always quit if you want.", Anko mocked.

"I'll leave, if you mind", Kabuto Yakushi smiled.

"Really? Sure, knock yourself out, kiddo", Anko waved him off. One less genin to eliminate.

Team 7 looked at each other confused, wondering why Kabuto was quitting. Sakura moved a few steps towards him, as his team was close to theirs.

"Kabuto-san, why are you leaving?", Sakura asked him.

"I'm still tired and injured from the forest, I'll definitely lose", he answered.

"Any other cowards want to quit? Any?", Anko asked sarcastically.

"Anko, enough teasing, they deserve some respect for their survival ", the Hokage smiled at the genin.

"Bah, you call that survival? I call that a picnic", she smirked.

"Anko, not 'cough' everyone is as unstable as 'cough' you", a jounin jumped down from the balconies, landing next to the old man.

"Hokage-sama, 'cough' allow me take care of this 'cough' ", the jounin coughed violently. Hiruzen just nodded, taking a step back.

"Genin, I 'cough' am tokubetsu jounin Gekko Hayate 'cough' , and I will be the 'cough' judge of the preliminary matches. The large 'cough' screen on the wall will produce two names randomly and 'cough cough' will decide the matches.", the obviously sick jounin looked at them. "Any 'cough' questions?"

'Yeah right, randomly', the team from Ame thought.

Hearing none, he ushered them onto the balcony, apparently used to watch the jounin senseis of the Konoha teams appeared in puffs of smoke and motioned for their teams to stand near them on the balcony.

A loud beep was heard and the screen produced two names, Naruto Uzumaki and Kiba Inuzuka.

"Obviously I end up being the first match.I'm so lucky", Naruto sighed.

"Better be ready Naruto, cause I'm going to kick your ass.", Kiba grinned a feral grin.

"Like in the academy?", Naruto mocked, walking down the stairs.

"I picked up a few moves since then."

"Ditto"

" Let the 'cough' match start.", Hayate said.

Kiba took out a small brown ball.

"A rabbit shit?", Naruto asked.

"Idiot, that's a soldier pill, it gives you a chakra boost.", Sakura yelled at the blond.

Kiba, surprising them, threw the pill to Akamaru, his puppy companion.

Akamaru growled like a full grown wolf, his fur turning red and his claws growing.

"What the-", Naruto wondered at the change. He would look terrifying, if he wasn't so tiny.

"Man-Beast clone!, Kiba yelled as he made a hand sign, Akamaru turning into a clone of Kiba.

The clone jumped to the back of the original, both crouching.

"This is so weird", Sasuke said to Kakashi.

"The Inuzuka clan use their dogs to assist in attacks. They have multiple combos, all of which are rather strong. They see their dogs as equals, and form a strong bond. This leaves the possibility for harming the dog to be very threatening to the Inuzuka.", Kakashi cleared up the situation and gave Naruto an indirect tip for a win.

Naruto created ten clones and had them attack Kiba. The memory-transferring ability of shadow clones can be useful to find weak points in the fighting style.

The Kibas grinned and jumped in the air. With a cry of Getsuga, Fang Over Fang, they spinned incredibly fast, causing them to blur into a twin drill.

They flew around the arena, occasionally touching the floor to get a speed boost, ripping the clones to made more clones as he took cover behind was bad. Naruto didn't have many jutsus in his pocket, and Kiba was far faster than him, the speed of the drill would make taijutsu hazardous, not to mention the numerical advantage Kiba has. He remembered when they were in the forest, helping each other with the ambush. He saw Kiba deflect kunai while in drill mode with his claws.

However, he did remember how exhausted the Inuzuka was after the fight. He just had to outlast him, and as a jinchuuriki, he had plenty of chakra.

He was knocked out of his thought when, while dodging the drills, one of them realigned its trajectory towards Naruto, it had seemingly hopped off from the back of the other to hit Naruto head on.

However, Naruto remembered something important,Kawarimi. He substituted with a shadow clone, and decided to use his ninja tools for his didn't have any, as they will fly away when he spinned, making them useless.

Naruto used a bunch of smoke bombs, and threw them all around the Kibas separated, making it easy to impersonate one.

He used his advanced henge to turn into Kiba, and left towards the one that attacked him. Inuzukas would rather attack than have the dog attack, as to not endanger it.

He got to Kiba, and looked around, as if looking for the enemy.

He was astonished when Kiba punched him, hard.

"You may look like Akamaru, but you don't smell like him, Naruto!", Kiba growled.

'smell?', Naruto thought.

Kiba proceeded to fight hand-to-hand, easily gaining the upper hand. Naruto cursed, and lept to the smoke, using his collar to cover his mouth and nose. He noticed Kiba avoiding the smoke.

'He did smell me, do Inuzuka's have noses as strong as dogs? Possible in this crazy world. After all, I have a hundred foot demon in my guts.'

Naruto attacked Kiba again, aiming for a head on confrontation.

"Again? Dude I'm better in taijutsu.", Kiba laughed.

Naruto smirked, as he took a pepper bomb and launched it at Kiba's face. Direct hit. 'I should thank Sakura for the bombs she made after this.'

"Aghhhh!", Kiba yelled as he felt his sensitive nose was on fire, "Ahhh! Fuck! It hurts!", Kiba ran away from the pepper cloud and fell on the ground, clutching his nose. Akamaru transformed back and ran towards Kiba to comfort his partner.

'This will feel horrible for me', Naruto thought as he did the unthinkable.

He kicked the puppy.

.

.

.

"Monster!", yelled Anko.

"Beastly behavior! ", Hayate said.

"How unyouthful!", shouted the eyebrow duo.

"How could you!", yelled Genma.

"Pure evil!", said Ten-Ten.

"Akamaru!", Kiba yelled.

Naruto walked towards the downed puppy, wincing as he thought of a put his foot on the puppy, and pressed.

"Kiba, forfeit or Akamaru gets stomped. ", Naruto said.

"You asshole! How could you!", Ino yelled.

"Monster!", Sakura yelled.

"You do that too? It's really fun.", Kabuto remarked.

Everyone stared at him as he sheepishly hid behind his teammates.

"Kiba, forfeit! ", Naruto warned as he put pressure on Akamaru. The puppy whined as it was pressed by Naruto's sandals.

"I forfeit! Just don't hurt Akamaru!", Kiba begged.

"Winner, Naruto Uzumaki.", Hayate said. The kid kicked a puppy. Cruel bastard.

Naruto walked to his team on the balcony, as they emptily stared at him.

"You kicked a puppy", Kakashi said.

"Yeah, but I won.", Naruto felt nervous at what his sensei might say.

"Do you _feel_ like a winner?"

"No"

"Good, you still have some semblance of humanity left in you.", Kakashi said as he looked at the screen.

Names flashed through it as it finally stopped at two names. Sakura Haruno vs Ten-Ten.

… **.**

"I'll take him in the month"

"No, I'll do it. I have something to give that I was holding on to it."

"I have one of those too, you know? His freaking father's as well"

"I wasn't talking about mine, I have another, a legendary. It should go well with his blood."

"I already called dibs."

"Like you did a dozen years ago?"

"Don't bring that up, teme."

"Please, let's keep it civil, Jiraiya, Orochimaru."

"Anyways, I just want the next few can take him out with you.", Orochimaru said.

"I think not", Hiruzen told them.

"What? Sensei?", Jiraiya asked, astonished. He needed to spend time with the kid, he already left him all these years ago.

"The Amekage is visiting next month. Why would someone with his views of Konoha visit?"

"I see…"

"We can figure out your part. For now, mine is better for him."

"Ok, fine. I need to go now, Later teme, sensei.", Jiraiya said, jumping out the window. He was pissed at Orochimaru, but shit happens he guessed. He'll find a way, the legendary Jiraiya always does.

"I hope three weeks are enough, I can't spare anymore time for you."

"They are, sensei."

… **.**

"Ten-Ten, Sakura Haruno, please come to the arena.", Hayate said.

Ten-Ten jumped down in a show of acrobatic skill. She had a pink top with generic brown pants. Her hair in two buns behind her head.

Sakurs wore her usual red dress, through it was roughed up from the forest. Ten-Ten seemed fine, a sign of a superior team, or a lucky one.

"Start!", Hayate signaled the beginning of the match.

Sakura looked at her opponent, trying to find a weakness. Her ribs were bruised and the wound on her arm was closed, but might open if stressed.

Ten-Ten decided to start, and she took out ten kunai, each on a finger, and eight shuriken between her fingers. She jumped in the air and launched all of them with high speed and accuracy.

"That was awesome", Sasuke told Kakashi. He was trying to learn how to do that, but was stuck at six projectiles at once.

Sakura jumped away, but caught a kunai to the leg and three shuriken grazed her back.

Kakashi noticed the throw made by Ten-Ten, high precision, high speed, each aimed at the multiple paths Sakura could take to avoid, meaning she had to take at least a a weapon master in training.

Sakura threw some kunai of her own, and kept one as a -Ten effortlessly dodged and took out six kunai and threw all missed and surrounded Sakura. 'Did she miss?',

The answer was soon realised as wires were made visible, surrounding the pink haired girl. Ten-Ten smirked as she did a couple quick hand seals and fire appeared on top of her finger, similar to a lighter. Sakura paled as she noticed the greasy nature of the wires. Oil.

Ten-Ten lit the wires and flames traveled towards Sakura, engulfing her in arena was quiet as brains processed what just happened.

They left their thinking as kunai were thrown at the weapon user from behind. Sakura appeared behind her as she threw some more.

'Kawarimi, substitution', Ten-Ten thought.

Sakura came at Ten-Ten aiming for a close range confrontation, realising that the girl's bias for long range obviously kept her short range skills underdeveloped.

 _Poof_

With a puff of smoke, Ten-Ten unsealed a weapon from a scroll at her hip. A Wakizashi, a two foot sword. Shit. Guess she's not all that weak at close range.

Ten-Ten slashed at Sakura, hitting her forearm and shoulder. Ten-Ten then used Sakura's head as a platform to jump from. She spin in the air and threw a couple shuriken,hitting the girl in the shoulder blade.

"Winner, Ten-Ten!", Hayate intervened, seeing how one-sided this whole match was.

Ten-Ten smiled and walked to Sakura, helping the downed girl get to the took her to the tower's infirmary.

Ten-Ten climbed the stairs to her team, smiling at Neji, who smiled back. It was a pretty easy win.

Kakashi sighed. She got wrecked. Didn't really stand a chance.

"Wow. That was quick", Naruto said.

"Guess she was just simply outmatched", Sasuke said. He hoped he won't face such a strong opponent.

After a while, Hayate brought attention to the screen. Names flashed before staying at the next Akimichi vs Kankuro no Sabaku.

"Choji", Asuma Sarutobi, eldest son of the hokage, and sensei of team 10, said. "Try your best, we'll be going to a BBQ joint after all this is over.",he smiled.

"Hai sensei, I'll win!", he said determinedly. Asuma nodded, realising how little of a chance Choji had.

Kankuro quietly walked to the arena, adjusting the bundle on his back.

Choji eyed his opponent. He was wearing a black one-piece suit with cat also had...makeup? No, war .

Kankuro stared at his opponent, green jumpsuit, really overweight, must be an Akimichi, Sensei said they can use chakra to expand their body. Better be quick, wouldn't want a gigantic fist to smash my face.

"Start the match!", Hayate yelled.

Choji, surprisingly vicious, rushed at the sand nin, hitting him hard with an uppercut. The bundle fell as Choji hit Kankuro with all his might, a crack was heard as his chest was hit.

Choji then held Kankuro by the throat as he lifted noticed something was off, Kankuro's face was cracked, flakes of wood falling off.

"What the-"

Four wooden arms full of joints with knifes at the ends went out from Kankura and wounded Choji lightly, mere surface cuts.

The bundle wrapped in cloth moved as a figure appeared from inside it.

Kankuro stood up, blue chakra strings from his fingers controlling the figure Choji was holding.

"Puppeteer", mused Kakashi, "Suna always had a specialty in puppeteers".

Choji suddenly collapsed, dropping the puppet that then moved right next to Kankuro.

"Hm, it's over protractor.", Kankuro threw the protractor a vial with a brown liquid inside.

"Poison eh? Shouldn't expect 'cough' anything else from a 'cough' puppeteer. Winner, Kankuro no Sabaku!", Hayate proclaimed the end of the match.

He walked to Choji and poured the liquid down his used shunshin to get down and carried the young Akimichi to his team.

"What happened, sensei?", Ino asked.

"Poison", he said. He saw Shikamaru eyeing the young redhead from Suna. So he noticed too?

Hayate lazily looked at the screen, waiting for it to decide the next fight. 'Man, genin fights are boring'

The screen beeped, producing the two names, Neji Hyuuga vs Hinata Hyuuga.

'Maybe the matches wouldn't be so boring after all.'

Hinata froze, she was going to fight _Neji_!

Neji raised an eye, Hinata?

He walked down the stairs, ignoring the youthful shouts of his teammate and sensei. Those two are hopeless.

Genma noticed his student freezing wasn't surprised, considering the history between those put his hand on her shoulder and told the young genin, "It's okay if you want to forfeit. I won't pressure you to fight Neji."

Hinata looked at Neji, he was too strong. Prodigy of the Hyuuga clan, her cousin was older than her by almost exactly one had more experience, not to mention that he would be stronger, and especially far faster, considering who his sensei is. Might Guy is well known around Konoha, and indeed, the world, as one of the most powerful Jounin in this village. She felt herself panicking, he was too strong. She hesitantly walked down,facing her cousin.

Neji was dressed in a white shirt, with brown leggings. His right arm was bandaged, not from injuries, but to protect it in taijutsu forehead protector over his forehead, most likely covering it.

Hinata wore her trademark large coat, with her hitai ate around her neck.

"Hinata-sama, it would be wise to forfeit, you are outmatched here,as I had far more training than you.", Neji said.

Hinata trembled, he was correct, she was too weak, as usual. She raised her arm, and said to the protractor, "N-Neji-nisan i-is cor-rect, I f-forfeit. "

'Psychological warfare, this one is definitely chunin material.', Hayate thought. "Winner, Neji Hyuuga!", he motioned them to go back to the balcony.

Hinata hung her head low as she walked back.

"Hinata", Genma said. She looked at her sensei, "You did well,actually going down there must have took a lot of guts, you'll get better", he smiled.

"T-Thank you s-sensei",she said.

Guy looked at his student, that _was_ an asshole move, but the psychological warfare was a sign of good thinking, he'll be tokubetsu in no time.

Hayate looked quite much of interest happened. The only reasonable bloodshed that happened was when Kakashi's girl was nailed by Guy's, and even then it was too one sided to be amusing. Hayate wasn't bloodthirsty or anything, but he wanted some form of excitement.

He looked at the beeping screen. Yoroi Akado vs Sasuke Uchiha. Maybe the Uchiha would have a fun match?

Sasuke walked down, clutching his torso. He needed to end this quick, his torso was still wounded and it didn't heal fully.

Yoroi wore a blue garb with a piece of cloth covering his had sunglasses as well, and, rather out of place, his hands had nothing covering them forearm down.

Sasuke wore his usual blue shirt, with the Uchiha crest on the took note of how his shirt was torn directly at the top of the abdomen.

"How many times did you fail, 8 or something? You're at least a decade older than me.", Sasuke mocked.

"I'll show you just how much I fail.", Yoroi growled.

"Start the 'cough' match.", Hayate said.

Sasuke rushed Yoroi head on, aiming for a quick taijutsu confrontation to asses his opponent's skill.

Yoroi calmly dodged the punch and threw a punch back.

Sasuke blocked and kicked his grabbed his leg and pushed Sasuke down, Sasuke grabbed his arm and locked in a was when he felt himself getting weaker. He noticed Yoroi's hands glowing. 'Is he sucking my chakra?'

Sasuke pushed the older man away, activating the tomoes spinning around his iris.

Yoroi came in close, trying to hit easily countered, his sharingan giving him an advantage. He already thought of a plan, he just needed location. Yoroi attacked, trying to leech the boy of his chakra. Sasuke used his superior speed to kick the man's knee, downing him temporarily. Sasuke went behind him and started a series of hand seals. A large fireball came at the Kiri nin, direct impact. He won't be recovering anytime soon.

Hayate noticed the man's fall and realised that he won't be getting up from such injuries. "Winner, Sasuke Uchiha. "

Sasuke walked back to the balcony, his arm on his must've opened a wound, evident by the blotch of fresh blood appearing on the shirt.

Kakashi didn't miss this, and decided to talk about it.

"Sasuke, how about you go to the infirmary?", he smiled.

"Eh, why? He wasn't hit.", Naruto said.

"He reopened the wound.", Kakashi explained.

"No I didn't! ", Sasuke protested.

"Yes you did, Sasuke-kun", Sakura said.

"Fine, I'll go when the matches are over.", the Uchiha stated.

"Good enough", Kakashi smiled again.

"Hey, look, the next match!", Naruto said.

True to his words, the screen showed the next names, Misumi Tsurugi vs Akame.

Misumi, Yoroi's teammate, wore a similar garb, but wore gloves and lacked the mask and sunglasses.

Akame, the girl from the Ame team that passed, wore a dark mini-dress, with red gauntlets and black gloves. She had a sword sheathed in a red sheath. She also, strangely enough, had red eyes, though not the same hue as the Sharingan. They were rather oval shaped.

Misumi laughed, mocking his opponent. "You should just quit, little girl, or you'll see how real ninja fight.

Hayate watched the girl, sizing her up. 'Sword user? This should be interesting. I'd like to see how strong Ame's swordsmen are, or should I say, swordswomen.', the tokubetsu jounin thought, he himself being a swordsman. He suddenly started having indecent thoughts about his girlfriend. The relationship is currently suffering, but it's salvageable. He did smile at the thoughts however.

Akame stared at him coldly, not bothering to reply.

Hayate raised his arms in the air. "Start", he brought them down.

Akame unsheathed her sword, pointing the edge at him.

" _Eliminate_ "

Akame seemingly disappeared, reappearing behind the Kiri genin. Misumi then fell apart, into four different pieces.

… **.**

 **Chapter done, and the next one is up tomorrow!**

 **As you can see, I'm already bastardizing the Canon. I have a fuck ton of changes, and they will be starting at this time or so. I have something special for the training month, it'll sound stupid, but I still like it. If you don't you just have to deal with it.**

 **Yes, this new "Akame" character is from Akame Ga Kill, one of my favourites. She'll be a character in this fanfic. If you haven't watched Akame Ga Kill, I strongly recommend it, it's awesome.**


End file.
